


Million, Billion, Trillion

by LazarusLiszet



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Auror Lily Evans, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Romance, BAMF Lily Evans Potter, BAMF Mary MacDonald, BAMF Severus Snape, Bottom Severus Snape, But magic fixes everything, Butterfly Effect, Canonical Character Death, Character Death Fix, Domestic Violence, Dominant Lily Evans, Don't copy to another site, Drama & Romance, F/M, Fertility Issues, First Kiss, Fix-It, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Good Severus Snape, Gray Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter's still the chosen one, Hermaphrodites, Hogwarts Fifth Year, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, James Potter Bashing, Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape Friendship, Lily Evans Potter Lives, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Mary MacDonald & Severus Snape, Medi-Auror Lily Evans, Morally Grey Characters, Mpreg, No other bashing, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pregnant Severus Snape, Protective Lily Evans, Protective Severus Snape, Redemption, Second Chances, Severus Snape Has a Heart, Severus Snape Lives, Slow Burn, Sort Of, Sub Severus Snape, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Top Lily Evans, Violence, Young Severus Snape, but it gets better, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2020-05-30 22:04:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 48,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19412308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazarusLiszet/pseuds/LazarusLiszet
Summary: ***Re-write of Death's Apprentice***Severus Snape has always been in hell, whether dead or alive.Death values those who are not crushed by being handed an impossible hand in life, and Severus Snape was one such person. They only come once an age, and each is as valuable as the last. When Tom Riddle made horcruxes, he cheated death, and, if the three brothers are any indication, Death does not take kindly to being cheated.Severus awakes in his fifth year of Hogwarts with a new wand and old memories, not to mention the magical potential to match the most legendary of Wizards. His peace of mind is a small price to pay for such a gift, especially when Lily doesn't hate him, he has yet to loyally pledge to the death eaters, and Albus Dumbledore is willing to work with this enigmatic fifteen year old to end the war--not to mention that the Marauders might actually get punished for nearly taking his life, and come to regret their actions in the process.





	1. I: Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus makes a deal.

It's painful, is the only thing Severus can really think or comprehend. His hands tears into something soft and thin and pliant, and his heart (you don't have that anymore) wrenches terribly, his eyes flying open (how does he have them, he wonders) and he lurches upright.  
  
Thing is, Severus doesn't _r_ _emember_ having a body to lurch upright in. Not right now when his thoughts are only of pitch blacks and gradients and monochromes, of a long, empty hallway that's turned into a wide open field in the park, with swing sets and an enormous old oak tree, all of it bleached of color but like with _negative_ bleach, some sort of thing that eats away at both light and color until it's nothing but vague outlines and staggering shadows. He remembers staggering down these not-paths with swimming vision and a hand clutched to his neck. How he'd taken his hand away and had seen the only color left in the world smeared across his fingers, the violent, acidic emerald green he associated with ambition and cunning and the very fiber of his character.   
  
Oh, yes, he regretted what he'd done, but he _was_ a Slytherin to the end, a cunning, ambitious snake, but a snake who wanted nothing but to right the world and his own wrongs. When Albus said, "sometimes I think we sort too soon,” it was like a blow to the face. Like Albus Dumbledore truly believed that all Slytherin's were evil. Severus had been their head of house long enough (had been _o_ _ne of them_ long enough) to know that that was completely false. You don't have to be a Gryffindor to be brave.   
  
Slytherin wasn't a word pertaining to fairy tale villainy or real-life horrors--It was a childish thing to think that at all. No, the only _real_ evil in the world were those who killed without care or compassion or any sensations in their empty heads and chest cavities, the ones with red eyes and sharp teeth and high voices.   
  
Even Grindelwald had loved, if his inkling as to Albus' past was anything to go by.   
  
Not Voldemort.   
  
He still feels a terrible, awful pain in his neck and his forearm, unable to draw breath because he's still there, isn't he? Walking those lonely halls and pathways and always just close enough to the only safe place in the world to _almost_ touch it, and how he longed with all his aching, dead-and-rotting heart to step over the threshold of reality into that evergreen field that's lovingly dubbed _our spot_ in his memory and say _I'm sorry, I'm so_ ** _so_ ** _sorry, I'm so very_ **_sorry_** _, (he wails, brays, crows)_ but the world is not fair, and it is not kind, and he does not expect anything less than to always be one step out of reach of such a commodity.   
  
But why does he have a _body_ ? He'd left that behind so long ago, with gentle hands on his face and Lily's green eyes boring into his from her sons face.   
  
He doesn't know how long he'd wandered the streets of purgatory bleeding emerald green blood and dripping it behind him before someone had stood before him and told him in a coaxing, dangerously sweet whisper, _A moment, Severus._   
  
It is Lily, but drained of color and light just like everything else. He wants to scream and kick and sob and curse because _hadn't he done enough_ ? He'd sacrificed his life and his sanity to try and save as many as he could, to strike the red from his ledger.   
  
If this hell is any indication, he'd failed. And suddenly he feels no overwhelming, white hot compulsion to _move, keep moving, never stop,_ and he slumps to his knees with a distressed cry which echoes disorientingly through this forgotten wasteland.   
  
"You aren't her." Severus snarls, lurching from his knees --and this world may or may not be real, this may be his punishment, his hell, and he _deserves it_ , he does, but it's _his_ hell and _he will not_ ** _stand_ **_for them distorting_ ** _her_ **_image_ \-- and his wand is in his hand, another glimmer of color because it's not _his_ , it curls around itself in a sickly, ramrod straight spiral and the handle has tarnished silver wrapped around it. It hums in his hand like his own never had, and he feels _power_ , sharp and terrible and _exhilarating,_ more of his green life essence flooding from the chunk Nagini had torn from his neck, and hexes her with something bizarre that he hadn't known existed, and she sways and laughs.   
  
"Such spirit, such _fire_ in a man of ice and secrets." She hisses with Lily's lips, Lily's lungs, Lily's _air_ , but not her _voice_ .   
  
It's not a language he's ever spoken, but he hears it and understands it as clearly as English, doesn't even realize it isn't, it's _ancient_ , hissing and melodious like some haunting, demented song. He speaks it back.   
  
"Stop wearing her face, you miserable _wretch_ \--" his voice sounds like honeyed liquor and velvet, and this unfamiliar language fits in his mind and his soul like no other he's ever spoken.   
  
"I thought it would put you at ease. Certainly, you aren't a simpering, death-fearing sow like the rest of your kin. Impressive." She purrs the last word, and warps into something looming and otherworldly, a thin, skeletal outline shrouded in mist and black fabric.   
  
Severus has spent so long in hell (he'd never left or entered it, it's been his life and his death, from the moment he'd been born and his father had kept the beatings coming, from the moment four schoolboys had picked up where Tobias left off, from the moment he came home to his mother with a shattered beer bottle sticking out of her face, from the moment he'd rocked Lily's lifeless body in his arms) and death is _welcome_ in his existence. It's always been there. It's a comforting constant in his twisted heart of hearts.   
  
He does not simper and cower, he does not curl into a fetal position and beg for mercy like he knows _damn well_ Voldemort will do or has done, and a million billion _trillion_ before him since the dawn of time both animal and human no doubt has. He does not flinch and does not flee; he stands with his strange wand and his vivid green blood oozing from his wound and he _stands his ground._ He is not a coward anymore. He never will be again.   
  
Death meets his unwavering black eyes and sets its feet on the not-ground. Severus' robes, the same cut and style as in his life (sharp and simple, showing off his scrawny, young form while lending him imposing lines and ridges) but made out of the same shimmering not-fabric as Death's, whip in the wind as they stare one another down unwaveringly, not hostile or amiable.   
  
Then death starts to laugh. It's a chilling, melodic thing that freezes the green blood in Severus' not-veins quite literally, stopping his bleeding in its tracks. It cackles until Severus is thoroughly unnerved, and yet he still watches the thing expectantly.   
  
" _What?_ " He spits, and green flies from his lips where it had gurgled up his throat.   
  
"It's just so _delightful_ that the one man in this petty war who wished to die is the one I must choose to live again." Death purrs, as death is always, _always_ delighted by ironies.   
  
There are few people who truly wish to die. Oh, there are people who _think_ they do, and who later regret it as they face death, mewling and whining pathetically in the face of their own mortality, rebuking their foolish notion that Death was black, blissful nothingness.   
  
Severus Snape is one of the few men to prove to death that there _are_ always people who do not fear death in its tried and true form.   
  
"You know," Death rumbles, it's echoing three tone voice reverberating in Severus' chest, "there were once four people of magic who came to me, and each and every one of them was like you. Content and unwavering in their strengths and beliefs, strong enough to summon their wands in the face of death itself no matter whether their fate was white or black, and who stared me down as you do now. They refused my offer to go back, to fix things I asked them to fix. They still do, at every turn. But they died old, and regretless, and do not yearn for knowledge and the strength to protect the long dead as you do. You are the youngest to manifest your magic in this place. The youngest to bleed a color other than black or white." Death tells him, smiling a skulls smile.   
  
Severus watches it with fervent, unwavering willpower.   
  
"And what is it you ask them for?" Severus says surely and easily in this foreign, haunting tongue. "What is it you seek from them, and from me?"   
  
Always ambitious, always cunning, and always, always willing to find any chance to undo his wrong doings, even in death.   
  
_The strength to protect the long dead_   
  
"Tom Marvolo Riddle has stolen time from me. Others have, in the past. But these you would not be able to find, these, you would not be able to recover my time from. Riddle, you can. Even if he does die, he dies too late and he upsets the balance. What I seek from you is to make certain that Tom Marvolo Riddle dies when he should, on the very same day that you turn 31. And in return, I will give you what you wish for most." Severus sneers, knowing a trap when he hears one. It's like genies and Faeries--what you wish most is never _actually_ what you want.   
  
"Understandable of you to doubt me, Severus Snape. No, what you truly wish I already _know_ of. You will not need to tell me, and fret over wording and loopholes. I will simply _show you,_ and let you decide for yourself."   
  
"And what's the catch? I _want_ to defeat Voldemort. There's always a price to these things."   
  
"The price? Your peace of mind. The price is that you will _always remember_ that other life of yours. You will _always_ remember these yawning eons in which you limped and staggered through the walkways of the afterlife, bleeding and in agony. In return, I will grant you full access to your abilities which not even Albus Dumbledore had seen. Wizards are never able to reach their full potential, to access their entire range of talent. You would have it. You would outpace Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter, Voldemort and Grindelwald and all those other petty figures. You have the will, the strength and the heart and the wisdom to stand with the founders of Hogwarts, with Merlin and Salazar and even dear Lucinda Meredith Prince, your ancestor who still lives on my time in exchange for striking a Dark Wizard who evaded death from the history of Life. Just like you will. And you will have done me a service. Those who do this for me live cyclic lives, they are the very reason for myths of soulmates and reincarnation."   
  
"How is Voldemort’s death worth such a thing?" He asks, now sounding rather frightened.   
  
"I am a benevolent master, Severus Snape. All I will ask is that you eradicate those dark and light wizards which I direct you to. Having a loyal, semi-immortal servant who respects and trusts me is the most valuable thing death could ask for."   
  
Severus searches its empty eye sockets, and he somehow manages to tell--whether through Legilimency or intuition--that it's telling the truth. "Is the supply so short, to in turn create such a demand?"   
  
"Most are happy to die and be dead. That is because all magic comes with sacrifice, even the light sort, and those who sacrifice the most, who are so very weighed down by death and loss and terror as you have been, sink. They are beyond courage and redemption, beyond my offers. Even though the ones who sacrificed the most are the only ones capable of carrying out my will. As I said, these people like you come once in an age. Each and every one is worth my time."   
  
Severus swallows thickly. "You said soul mates--" he chokes on the words. He wouldn't be selfish enough to force Lily to be with him through twisted, celestial intervention.   
  
"Lily Evans once loved you dearly. In this life, you will be wise enough to show her your love in return. She will understand you, and she will be your anchor. Without them, my servants tend to crumble."   
  
"I..." he thinks severely, weighs the options. Death is ever patient, and it may take years or decades, but he nods abortively. "You said you'd show me." He hedges.   
  
"Indeed. But one more thing, Severus--" death pauses, finding it's words in its eerie language. Severus wonders if he'd still be fluent in it upon living again. "You may think it easier to work for the light through the side of the light, but I must warn you. Keep the timeline similar. Not the same, but similar. The dark magic your kin so reviles is simply thought of as dark due to sacrifice. Most of your power will come from said darkness. But it does not need to be used for dark things. No matter how tempting, stay with Slytherin, stay close to Hogwarts, and most of all, take the mark. The timeline will change, your memories will become untrue, and in order to defeat Voldemort you will need to be at his side, in order to know what, exactly, has changed."   
  
"But--"   
  
"Sometimes, the world does not need a shining light. Sometimes it needs a shadow."   
  
And Severus finds himself plunged into a different world, free of the pain in his bleeding neck and the dark monochrome. The light blinds him, and he can feel Death's bone hand on his face, and then he can see.   
  
Lily, laughing and dancing with him in an empty square, leaves fluttering around them. His hair and face are healthy, and he wears nice clothing well suited to his thin, lanky frame. Lily's taking lead, and Severus had always been delighted to let her as a child. This adult Lily seems just as delighted by the trust he places in her, no matter how frivolous the display of it is. And then, in a different frame of time, Severus stands in front of Dumbledore's desk, dark and looming and serious in comparison to the magnanimous, twinkling lightheartedness of Albus Dumbledore, and they speak like comrades and equals rather than a general and his spy, his subordinate, his student, and Severus has the same strange wand in his hand there as he does now.   
  
Then, even later on, Severus murmuring to Lily about something embarrassing that he'd always been ashamed of in the dimness of a bedroom, a biological quirk of the Prince family that left him feeling just like Petunia's always said and Potter'd always taunted despite not liking blokes, _freak, Nancy, git, disgusting little--_ , and then Lily taking a potion to change herself to match his bizarre, freakish biology, with some of her own because _I want a child, Sev,_ followed by _I'm sorry, Lily, I can't give you one, not like that_ and then--   
  
A girl with curly black hair, a smattering of dark, earthy freckles and evergreen eyes, wide and sparkling, accompanied by a younger boy with wide black eyes and hair like a licking, curling fire.   
  
Blurring images of friends, someone with glasses and a goofy grin, begrudgingly ruffling his not-so-greasy hair, a man with scars and skittishness ingrained into his being kissing him on the cheek just to see him shriek his name indignantly and punch him in the shoulder, a tall man with blond hair laughing and congratulating him on the announcement of a third child on the way, and he'd never wanted a big family but he knows somewhere in his heart of hearts that Lily probably would've done, and that him in the vision looks so _happy,_ and the blond man laughs in a familiar voice and hugs him like a best mate would, and their black tattoos shows because their sleeves are shucked up and _no one is looking at it_ , and it looks so happy and domestic it makes his heart ache in longing.   
  
He's dragged out of it, and blinks in the melancholy din that death calls its home. "What, no war, no battles?"   
  
"You know already what those look like, Severus Snape. I was simply showing you the good things you will have that you didn't before. The bad will be much the same as last time, but it will be balanced with the good."   
  
Severus swallows thickly.   
  
"Last time, Riddle stole more than a decade from me. This time, should you kill him on the day you're supposed to, you will become immune to my judgement in terms of stealing time."   
  
"And if I don't?"   
  
"You will. They all do."   
  
That's reassuring, at least.   
  
"What will your answer be, Severus Tobias Snape?"   
  
"Yes. Yes, alright." He chokes, and lurches upright again, his heart and lungs seizing and his eyes snapping open.   
  
"Sorry, my dear. Waking nightmares, awful things." A familiar women’s voice says, and his world, for the first time in eons, plunges into the true depths of unconsciousness. 

****

###

****

It's painful, is the only thing Severus can really think or comprehend. His hands tear into something soft and thin and pliant, and his heart (you don't have that anymore) wrenches terribly, his eyes flying open (how does he have them, he wonders) and he lurches upright. This time, it's real, it's not just a phantom feeling the edge of his awareness as it had been in Death's realm.   
  
His thin chest heaves, and when he looks down, he finds himself still lean and gangly but shorter, and he blinks hard. His hands tear at the sheets, and he tosses and kicks them to the floor without care, yanking up an unfamiliar shirtsleeve to find no dark mark. He feels dizzy, sick with lightheadedness, and sinks carefully back into the headboard lest he fall off the bed. He combs his long fingers through greasy hair and grimaces as phantom pain sears the tendons and veins of his neck. He senses the wand (deaths gift to him, one of many) sitting in the bedside drawer.   
  
"Mr. Snape! You're awake, oh, dear." Says Poppy, rushing into the room. His mind says she's a colleague, a friend, but Severus has been thrust into situations where cover is imperative by Voldemort and Albus alike, so frequently that he quickly slams down his shields and contorts his face into what it would be all those years ago (ruffling through boxes of old memories shunted to the back of his mind, he was always bored and melancholy, his father made him used to hospital visits).   
  
She examines his face, and he feels for the first time a burning pain in three centers of feeling on it.   
  
That three toned voice rumbles in his head, for his ears only, _I've given you a head start for your pluck, Severus._ And Poppy's eyes well with tears as she does a standard scan with her wand. He wonders what on earth death could mean, and then she says, gently and kindly, "What do you remember, Severus?" Death has him covered. And old, outdated memory spans his peripheral, warped by the hands of his new master.   
  
_Frozen in terror at the entrance to the shrieking shack, hands trembling on his wand even though he knows it's pointless, a feeble shield that claws sweep through. They catch his face and the world goes white and black and static with pain, searing, white hot agony. His throat raw from screams that he can't remember making._ _  
_ _  
_ _Potters frantic_ Oh, god, oh, Merlin, oh fuck, what have we done, there's so much blood _and jostling, being carried._   
  
And above all, rage and a sick, bubbly feeling that it isn't quite Remus' fault. He knows now, that it'd very nearly torn the marauders apart when he _hadn't_ been physically hurt. Ice water rushes through his veins at the thought of Lupin being put to death for one of Sirius Black's stupid, reckless actions. He trembles. Werewolf scars don't heal.   
  
"Oh, dear, what's this then?" Poppy splutters, gently tugging aside his shirt collar. He can't angle his head right to look, but he can imagine.   
  
"How bad are the ones on my face?" He rasps. Poppy's still examining what he assumes is Nagini's bite mark, however odd it is to be there, but she does accio a mirror, looking quite morose. He doesn't turn it over for a moment.   
  
"Go on, dearie. It's not as bad as you think."   
  
_Liar_ , Severus thinks, and then swings the mirror around in his hand. Staring back at him is his own face, youthful and thin with poverty, and now three thin, jagged lines run diagonally across his face.   
  
They aren't so bad as what he remembers Lupin having, and they don't detract from his already terrible--   
  
"What happened to my _nose_?" He asks, bewildered as he reaches up to touch it. It's still long and aquiline, but it isn't ugly and crooked anymore, with bumps and ridges along the bridge.   
  
Poppy looks at her feet.   
  
"It had breaks that weren't set right, Mr. Snape. I took it upon myself to remove the built-up cartilage and bone that results." She's looks at him kindly. "It was the least I could do."   
  
He sighs shakily. Eventually, he decides to take his eyes off of his face, which is still awkward and gawky--he still has watery eyes and too-plump lips and a long, beaky nose with a weak chin and a sharp jawline, but it isn't snarled and awful, and it does do a bit to make him not _too_ disgusted with his face. He glances at Poppy before tugging his collar aside, tilting the mirror so he can better examine his neck.   
  
Thin angry red lines crawl over the skin from four pockmarks like a spiderweb, and they writhe through his veins like lightning. His black eyes trace the pattern made by her venom.   
  
Its fifth year, he's fifteen, he's covered in scars, and he won't have said the _word_ to Lily until the owls this year. He shudders.   
  
"I..." he trails off, lost for words. What does a teen say to being irreparably scarred by another student?   
  
"Albus will be in shortly to talk to you, dearie. He's wrapping things up in his office. A quarter hour." She tells him. Severus can't help but panic a bit. Why on earth would Lily love him now, scarred and ruined as he is. He nods absently, and Poppy retreats to her office.   
  
He doesn't know how long he sits staring at the wall before Albus comes in, trailing bright periwinkle robes behind him. "Mr. Snape." Albus greets solemnly.   
  
Severus knits his shields tighter, just as strong as the ones he uses with Voldemort.   
  
And death hisses in his ear, _show him. He will help you. Help us._   
  
He hesitates. What the headmaster does now with decide if Severus can truly trust him.   
  
"Headmaster." He returns, threading despondency and defeat into his voice. He knows how to manipulate Dumbledore now, just a bit. He learned from the best, after all. And what better way to slap Albus' inaction directly into his face than a blatant display miscommunication and show him how little Severus distrusts him (or did, the first time around). "Will I be expelled?" He asks, with enough resignation masterfully sunk into his tone that he sees Albus flinch from the corner of his eye.   
  
It scares him, how well his shields are holding. Putting his anger, fear, and anxiety in the deepest recesses of his mind so that he can levelly lie to Albus Dumbledore. He's been a spy for too long.   
  
"Mr. Snape, what makes you think you would be expelled? You are the one who was attacked." There's a bit of bewilderment layered beneath the concern and sympathy of Albus' grandfather act. He expects Severus to spit and scream at him, for his pale face to go blotchy with anger. A truly fifteen-year-old Severus would. (Has).   
  
Now, Severus allows himself more of his typical caustic behavior back. He sneers, "It's never stopped you before. The four of them have made my life hell--" he chokes on his words, his eyes stinging and his throat tightening. If James Potter and his cronies hadn't taken away what little sanctuary he had, would he have turned out differently? Would he have been with Lily the first time around? It doesn't matter, because he must stick to the timeline, and he's not far enough back to prevent it anyways. "And you have done _nothing_ about it."   
  
But Albus isn't listening, his eyes are fixed on Severus' scar. Not the ones on his face, no. The one on his neck. He tugs his collar up self-consciously.   
  
"Mr. Snape." Albus says calmly. His twinkle is gone. "You have a few options here. I cannot, and will not, expel an innocent student for being attacked. But I cannot in good conscience reveal to the Ministry Mr. Lupin's involvement. They would--"   
  
"Kill him." Severus finishes frigidly. Albus watches him, eyes hardening.   
  
"And you would want that Mr. Snape? Truly?"   
  
Severus meets his eyes, and he knows that Dumbledore expects him to say _yes_ but he's giving him a _choice_ . Last time, he'd assumed that Severus had wanted Lupin dead without even asking him his side of the story and would blab to the ministry at the first opportunity. Therefore, binding a traumatized fifteen-year-old boy with an unbreakable vow. He must ask, though. Must know if Albus Dumbledore truly values Lupin's life over his own.   
  
"If my answer was yes, would you allow me to press charges?" He asks Albus. Some of the kindness leaves his face, but Severus hasn't said yes or no, and he humors him.   
  
"I would."   
  
The words are truthful, he can see it plain as day with his legilimency. Severus lets out a tremulous breath. "I do not wish to press charges on Remus Lupin for attacking me."   
  
He continues, after a moments pause in which Albus stares at him, obviously reeling.   
  
Severus stares at his hands. "I would like to impose a magical restraining order on James Potter and Sirius Black instead." He says, and it's a _compromise_ . A good one. Magical restraining orders don't limit how close to someone you can get, like muggle ones. Instead, any spell the subject of the order sends at the one who poses it will backfire. He hadn't known they existed, back when this happened the first time. And Albus hadn't been willing to discuss much of anything, let alone compromises.   
  
"It could take almost the entire school year to procure one of those, Mr. Snape." The headmaster says. Severus knows this. _Keep the timeline similar._ His worst memory will still happen, but after that the Marauders will have no choice but to back off.   
  
"I just want that on top of whatever punishment you're already going to give them, Headmaster."   
  
"Of course, Mr. Snape."   
  
"So you'll do it?" Severus asks, a little shocked despite having figured he might agree when Albus nods.   
  
He passed Severus' test. Albus Dumbledore wasn't needlessly cruel or contrary to him, he didn't give the Marauders a slap on the wrist and bind him in an unbreakable vow.   
  
"Headmaster?" He asks, watching him curiously as Albus gazes at his scar.   
  
"What exactly made that, Mr. Snape?"   
  
Severus shrinks back, but he knows he'll need assistance with things regarding this situation. Instead, he reaches into the bedside drawer. "Mr. Snape..." his hand pauses, and he looks at Dumbledore expectantly. "I'm afraid your wand was broken in the shrieking shack." He says, obviously trying to be gentle and falling short.   
  
Severus nods and resumes his hands motion, pulling the blackened, twisted wand from its hiding place. Unlike in deaths realm, the wand doesn't flood him with power. No, he was _already_ flooded with it when he woke up. It's a wonder Dumbledore hadn't sensed it.   
  
Albus stares at the wand with raised brows, and then his expression drops into something confused and wary.   
  
"Where did you get that?" He asks sharply, with something like fear. It's sharp and acrid like Nagini's venom. Severus sighs shakily and, with trepidation, releases his mental shields. The cold, foreign feeling of someone in his head shivers its way down his spine.   
  
_Such a loyal servant, Severus. But I'm afraid...you've outpaced your usefulness._ _  
_ _  
_ _Pain, and Lily's eyes staring at him from her sons’ face. "T-Take them."_ _  
_ _  
_ _Agony, Cruciatus was better, he'd take it any day._ _  
_ _  
_ _Blackness._ _  
_ _  
_ _Green blood shimmering on his hands, soot and white ash fluttering down from the sky, a crowing, insistent voice urging him to keep moving no matter what._ _  
_ _  
_ _Hide them, hide them_ **_all_ ** _._ _  
_ _  
_ _YOU SAID YOU WOULD PROTECT HER!_ _  
_ _  
_ _Lily and James put their faith in the wrong people, Severus._ _  
_ _  
_ _What would you give me in return?_ _  
_ _  
_ **_Anything._ ** _  
_ _  
_ _Lily, after all this time?_ _  
_ _  
_ **_Always_ ** _._ _  
_ _  
_ _Burning, searing pain in his forearm, in his neck, a writhing snake beneath pale skin, staring at his face and loathing himself._ _  
_ _  
_ _Choked by soap bubbles, spluttering, hexing the daylight out of them in return with what little willpower he has left._ _  
_ _  
_ _His father screaming and throwing spittle in his face. In hospital, broken clavicle, "He fell outta a tree, stupid boy."_ **_Liar._ ** _  
_ _  
_ _Rocking Lily's body in his arms and weeping, destroying Albus' office in a fit of blind, all-encompassing fury._ _  
_ _  
_ _Such spirit, such_ fire _in a man of ice and secrets._   
  
_The power to protect the long dead._   
  
_The vision, of children and happiness and Lily and he dancing in an empty town square. Of Lucius and he embracing over good news, dark marks dim but not gone and not forgotten and not_ **cared about** _on their arms._ _  
_   
_His mother, severe but kind under the surface, too cowardly to leave and too weak to stay._   
  
_It's just so delightful that the one man in this petty war who wished to die is the one I must choose to live again._ _  
_ _  
_ _I just want to apologize, I'll sleep out here on the floor if I have to. Just_ please _tell her I'm here._   
  
_Lily's face drained of all light and color, laughing and swaying, speaking an ancient, forgotten language in three different voices._ _  
_   
_His pants come off next, after his trousers, and everyone bellows and laughs, angry tears sliding down his upside down face, his inner thighs littered with perfectly horizontal scars that give some of the laughers pause, but he'd seen Lily, seen her stifle a giggle before she noticed them, the old silvery lines and the new pink ones. He can't cover them, or they'll see how much of a freak he really is, he can't move his hands from shielding himself. She_ **_laughed._ ** _He doesn't need rescuing from someone who_ **_laughed_ ** _._ _  
_   
_He can help you, show him, tell him, he can help you--_   
  
**Mudblood!**   
  
**Snivellous!**   
  
_A portrait in the headmasters office, sneering derisively, spitting that awful word, "Mudblood--" and it's been years, decades, but it burns his blood and steeps his vision in red,_   
  
**DO NOT SAY THAT WORD!**   
  
_Horcruxes?_   
  
_Keep the timeline similar._   
  
_Yes, Horcruxes._   
  
_Muttering beneath his breath at sixty words per minute as Harry struggled to keep on his broom._   
  
_Drinking himself into a stupor, hating himself all the more, with every sip a vision--his mum, beer bottle in her face, her lips blue and the tile red,_ **cold, lifeless** _\--and a man with short cropped black hair and an ugly, angry face, nothing like Severus but_ everything _like him._ _  
_   
_Remembering Lily's death, the prophecy, his begging, his sick, dizzy realization._ _  
_ _  
_ _Watching a poor muggleborn woman, his_ **_friend_ ** _, not Lily, but something more than an acquaintance killed in cold blood, unable to reassure her or apologize or object._ _  
_   
_I killed her._   
  
_In the Evans' house, at the dinner table when Petunia says, I bet he'll be just like his father, you just watch! And a lightbulb pops and crackles above their head, sparks flying and tears hot on his face, it's the first time Tuney'd made him cry._   
  
**I am NOT my FATHER.** **  
**   
_Lately? Only those I could not save._   
  
Albus pulls out of his head with a sharp breath, and Severus looks at him and is horrified to see tear tracks on the old man’s face. His breath shakes, and Albus just sits there, staring at him for a moment. Severus wonders what he's going say, what he's going to do. What do you say to a man died and returned?   
  
Albus doesn't say anything.   
  
Instead, he _hugs_ Severus. The tight embrace terrifies him. His face lax with shock, Severus eventually lets his shields fall completely. He weeps.   
  
No man can die without shattering, at least a bit.   
  
Albus can tell the difference between a false and true memory, but none he'd seen, not even his own, were so vivid and clear.   
  
Albus had seen Severus' conversation with death.   
  
_The price? Your peace of mind._   
  
He believes death wholeheartedly in that Severus will never forget any of the things he's seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Revised as of 9/12/19


	2. II: Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus sorts through his head, and Lily makes an appearance.

Over the next couple days Severus and Dumbledore speak in depth about the war and everything at stake under the guise of recovering mentally. It's almost reassuring, and certainly familiar, despite him being fifteen. They have to sort things out. And there are a lot of things that need sorting.   
  
According to Poppy, Severus has waking nightmares, and night terrors. Having either of them in Slytherin could make the dark lord less likely to accept him.   
  
The dark lord needs to accept him into the inner circle for him to become a spy. Severus isn't so selfish or foolish as to throw away decades of experience and talent to try and keep himself safe and away from the war.   
  
He needs to mend things with Lily and tell her everything. Lily has always been able to see through his shields, she'll know he's lying, just not what about.    
  
His magic is that of a fully-fledged wizard rather than a student, which will paint a target on the back of his head regarding everyone looking for talent. In his previous life, his perfect streak of O's had wobbled and toppled over after he and Lily's fight. As it probably won't happen again, Albus will have to try and keep people’s hands off of him in regard to jobs and jealousy alike.   
  
He needs to figure out a way to save his mother and the Evans parents.    
  
He needs to test out the full potential of his new wand, start learning as much as he can in every subject to try and combat Voldemort.    
  
He doesn't want to teach again, and yet Voldemort will want him to be eyes and ears at Hogwarts. He and Albus need to think of how to balance Severus' wants and needs with that of the war.   
  
They've drafted up an extensive list. Severus hits all the major points, still exhausted from the whole  _ coming back from the dead _ thing.    
  
One day, Albus looks up when the young man slips into the room, standing. "Severus." He greets, "Thank you for coming off schedule. I do know you need your rest." Albus had taken to treating Severus like an adult in stride. It's relieving to have a place where he doesn't have to pretend to be a teenager.   
  
He still hasn't talked to Lily. He's scared to, to be honest. He's not finished putting himself back together yet.    
  
Severus bounces between completely fine, fiercely determined and without any hesitation as to planning and scheming with the best of them, and barely holding together at the seams, distant and trying to keep the horror of his experience with death at bay.   
  
_ It will get better. _   
  
Death keeps saying that, but he's starting to doubt it. Today is one of his melancholy days, and he nods silently, wondering why Albus told him to bring his cloak.   
  
No one has tried to visit him. Not even Lily.   
  
"I thought we could go to Diagon Alley." He says, a twinkle in his eyes. "Usually, this sort of thing is frowned upon, but you need a new wand," this is said with a mischievous glint, "And it's a perfect excuse to help clear your head." He says. He's being kind, maybe even taking pity on him. That's been happening a lot.   
  
"I don't have any money, sir. Or none I can spare, rather." He says, his voice flat and emotionless. He looks at his feet. Albus looks at the dark marks beneath the boys red-rimmed, sleep deprived eyes, at how he holds himself, graceful and poised but in the same way as a king who was just dethroned, lost and dejected but prideful. Severus stops looking at his feet, instead focusing his attention on his nails.    
  
"You're going to be instrumental in the war. Paying you for all of this information is the least I can do." He says, cleverly. Instead of pity it becomes honest payment. Severus can't bring himself to refuse.   
  
"Alright." He says, nodding curtly. "Alright."   
  
Albus offers his arm, which Severus takes despite knowing he can apparate. He's too young still. Diagon Alley isn't nearly as packed as it is before school, and Severus and Dumbledore catch a few odd looks but nothing more than that. To Severus' surprise, Albus steers him towards a tailor shop with a firm hand on his shoulder.    
  
"Sir, I have robes--"   
  
"This store is rather different than you'd expect, Severus. I couldn't help but notice your robes in those memories being very, ah..."   
  
"Muggle?" He asks, dryly. He'd had them designed like that. After the debacle with James, Severus was less than inclined to wear regular robes. He much preferred something with a suit beneath it. It had been quite hard to find a tailor, and he idly realizes that this place they stand in front of wasn't there when he searched.    
  
"Indeed. This shop specializes in clothing that can fit comfortably in both worlds. And well, my boy--"   
  
"My muggle clothes are atrocious." Severus says, realizing Albus' intent. "Sir, I couldn't possibly--"   
  
"I insist."    
  
Severus had, of course, been planning to start saving money for some decent muggle clothes. To dress himself more to his own standards. He's tugged into the shop, startled by Dumbledore's generosity, and eventually finds himself stood on a little black dais in one of the private rooms in the back of the shop. The man who owns the place, Patterby Nelson, is using one of those magic tape measures, and Severus stares at him blankly as he does so. "How old are you, m'boy? Nineteen, or so?"    
  
"Fifteen." Severus murmurs, raising a brow at him. The man's brows raise.    
  
"Ah, then we'll leave some room for growing, I suppose." Severus frowns at the words. After sizing himself up in the mirror, Severus had come to the conclusion that he would, by last times standards, be about finished growing when he hit five foot nine. Fight now, he's perhaps a couple inches off.    
  
"A couple inches. I doubt I'll be getting any wider though." He tells him. Albus cocks a brow at him but says nothing. The tailor nods in agreement.    
  
Albus watches in bemusement as Severus describes what he wants. The boy keeps looking at him, as if saying  _ if that's alright with you,  _ but Albus simply nods encouragingly. He has the money to spare and can't help but feel guilty for what might have been. Eventually, Severus finds himself done. He'd been quite frugal about it all, settling with simple things. A long, warm wool coat that will sweep around his ankles like a robe, waist coats, simple button ups (white, black, dark green), black slacks. With that were two casual outfits; a soft charcoal grey tunic and hugging slacks meant to be worn with a long black cardigan, and a white button up, black jumper and blazer, with jeans. Albus had actually found something for him, too. It was a simple two-point cowl with a warming charm, and the wool had a bit of magic woven into it to the point that, when you turn it in a certain light it would look green, black, or grey. It made it rather gorgeous to look at in dynamic lighting.   
  
Albus took care of where the clothes would be delivered, and they left the shop. Severus has pulled his cowl on, his robe hung over one arm. It's black, now.    
  
Next, Albus leads him into a shop that has Severus digging his heels into the ground, eyes a bit wide. "Have you gone senile?" He snaps without thinking, an incredulous lilt to his tone. The antagonistic side of Severus (blown away by near death experiences and death) coming back at last startles Albus so badly that he just stares for a moment. Severus, who had realized like being doused in freezing water who he'd just said that to, stares at him as if bracing for a scolding.   
  
Albus laughs, loud, light, and real, honest laughter. He looks up at the shop he'd been about to enter, which was one of the lesser known beautification shops women loved so much. Makeup, beauty potions, hair product, skin care, fragrances. But what Albus' intention had been was three items back on that list. "Severus, I'm aware that you don't have the means to buy sufficient personal hygiene products. I figured by the way your face twists up whenever you touch your hair that you'd be more than happy to be done with such setbacks." Severus stares at him, wary.    
  
"Why are you doing this?"   
  
Albus examines him, and knows that the obvious,  _ I owe you dearly for what you've done for the world, and what you will do  _ won't fly. Honestly, Albus had never in a million years expected an asset like Severus Snape to come falling into his lap like this. Instead, he says "I have a plan that might more quickly put you at Voldemort’s side, but it requires you to be presentable in the eyes of pureblood society." He says, because he has indeed been considering it. If Severus were to be reintegrated into the Prince family, Voldemort would have one more reason to recruit him--Ministry Influence. The story of the Prince family is an old one, and as romanticized as the name suggests.    
  
"Because of my heritage? If you hadn't noticed--"   
  
"Have you heard the tale of Iverna Slytherin and Monette Ravenclaw, Severus?"   
  
His brow crinkles. He does, vaguely, recall Binns mentioning their names.    
  
"I will tell you it once we return to the castle, but for now, just humor me." His eyes have gone all twinkly again. Severus hasn't wanted to hex anyone more in--well, days, but still. He deflates a bit, allowing Dumbledore to lead him through the shop. A couple of witches with far too much colorful powder on their faces coo and simper at him about how wonderful his hair would be if he took care of it properly, reassuring him that they'd make it...they'd used some sort of bizarre Gaelic adjective he can't pronounce, but the inflection said  _ good _ . He had quite mildly allowed them to mess with him and his hair until, taking him to a back room, they had him wash and use some of their newly brewed product on it.    
  
That's their guarantee, after all. If you leave without something that works, you don't pay a knut.   
  
He slips out of the room with a frown tugging at his overfull lips and ignores the two women’s gasps and enthusiastic compliments. Albus just grins at him and shows him a mirror.   
  
In Severus' death given vision, his hair had looked just like this. Sitting curly and thick around his face and on his shoulders. He still looks like himself. Recognizable by his gawky face and pitch-black eyes and hair. The scars unnerve him, but he moves past them. He's just not completely hideous anymore. He wouldn't break any mirrors looking into them, but he's a far cry from Potter Sr.   
  
He's still far too thin, but there's nothing to be done about his killer metabolism. Even at Hogwarts he doesn't gain any sort of the fat or muscle other boys do.    
  
The rest of the day is spent browsing bookshops and apothecaries, that is until it starts to get dark and Albus starts walking off towards Ollivander’s. The bell on the door dings, and they both step inside. Ollivander looks between the two of them, frowning, before settling on Severus.    
  
"Mr. Snape," he greets but doesn't list the components of his wand. He knows it's broken.   
  
"Sir." He says simply. After a moments pause which obviously indicates that Albus wants him to broach the question, Severus sets his wand down on the counter and says, quietly, "Is there any way you could tell me what this wand is made of, sir?" Ollivander stares at it for far too long.    
  
"Where did you find this?" He asks him, almost sharply.    
  
Severus bites his lip so hard he fears it might bleed. "It was a gift." He says, because it's the truth. The wandmaker puts the pieces together when he picks it up, almost dropping it at the sheer force of power that it exudes. But no, it's not--   
  
The  _ wand _ isn't what's powerful about a wizard. Wand and wizard should work in tandem, strengthening one another, an equal partnership. This wand, though, hums at him as if made with a specific wizard in mind, rather than to be given the chance to choose, but the wand itself does not seen put out by it. It's loyal, the exact opposite of Albus' wand, and already Ollivander knows he would not be able to cast a single spell with it.    
  
That power is Severus'.    
  
"Ah, well, I suppose...I suppose I could." He mutters, and allows himself to tune into the wand, figure it out. Eventually, he sets it back on the counter. "There is always speculation that another type of wood can be used to create wands. One such debated wood is from old tales involving trees of blackest night which were home to bow truckles, but the tree has long since died out. It was a rare sort of elderwood. Some suppose it may have been a hybrid of ebony and elderwood made by magic kind, but it's only speculation.   
  
"This, as far as I can tell, is that wood.   
  
Ollivander clears his throat. "There are several wizards throughout history rumored to have suddenly awoken with wands made of this wood, though it isn't a well-known or recorded phenomenon. According to them, the wands made of this type only latch on to one person, or, in the more obscure and ludicrous myths, them and their reincarnations. The core, as far as I can determine, is thestral hair. Of course, I can't be sure."    
  
"Thank you, Mr. Ollivander." Albus says. He feels relief wash over him as he leaves the shop with his charge a pace and a half behind, glad that the wand doesn't have the same malicious properties as the Elder Wand. After all, the lengths people go to find a powerful wand are endless.    
  
Severus is finally released from Albus and Poppy's supervision, and while he understands their concern--he's been through a trauma, after all--he was starting to become restless and anxious with his need to see Lily. Knowing she was here and alive was eating him inside out slowly. It's a weekend when he's released, so he doesn't have any classes to worry about. He showers in the infirmary, uses the stuff for his hair to make his hair curly instead of greasy, and dresses. He dresses in one of the outfits Albus had bought him, because fifth years don't usually wear their uniforms on weekends and now he can indulge with the rest of them. It's cold, nearing Christmas hols, and he ends up in one of the casual things he'd bought. A long black cardigan that just about reaches his knees, his two-point cowl, a charcoal grey tunic, and fitting slacks with a nice pair of boots. He's never looked like this before. He looks like someone in Lily's neighborhood, or something.    
  
He wraps his arms around himself self-consciously, fiddling with the wand holster on his forearm.    
  
He won't exactly stand out amongst the upper years now; in fact, he'd probably blend easily into the Ravenclaw or Slytherin crowds on a weekend. He ducks his head and leaves the infirmary, heading down the hall with a single-minded goal: Find Lily. 

****

###

****

Unfortunately, he  _ probably  _ should have at least paid minute attention to his surroundings, because someone taller and broader than him knocks right into him, sending them both onto their arses.   
  
Severus is about to apologize to whoever it is, but then he meets eyes with Sirius Black and all of those thoughts go out the window. Black doesn't seem to know who he is at first, brow pinching. He watches as all the color drains out of the young Gryffindor’s face. He's not staring at Severus; he's staring at his scars. Fear that comes from the fifteen-year-old who'd just faced a werewolf overcomes the common sense of the thirty-eight-year-old spy, and Severus pales as well, breath shaking. It's an irrational subconscious reaction to a recent set of circumstances that he hadn't even lived, but he can't push it down nonetheless, his eyes stinging and his lungs restricting.   
  
Funny, that in his head Severus is berating himself for his nonsensical body as he scrambles to his feet and starts back down the hall without a word, pace brisk but not fast enough to be running.    
  
It seems like it hadn't yet hit Sirius that Severus could have died as a result of this whole disaster, and he hears the man call after him. Not an "Oi, Snivellous!" but a "Wait, Snape!" His stride doesn't pause. It's morning so Lily will either be in the library to study or the great hall for breakfast. He swings around the corner and jogs down the stairs with his heart pounding faster and faster the closer he gets to the great hall.   
  
His love for his former best friend was the only thing that kept him going for so long.   
  
He takes the stairs two at a time, idly thankful for the mid-way point death had given him. Being in a smaller, weaker body (as, apparently, death had found out through some poor sods or other) after so long in a different one tends to drive humans mad. Therefore, death had started making "halfway" point changes. As 15 is only a few years away from full physical development, Death had just adjusted his teen body to fit the same strength and stamina thresholds he'd had as an adult. Severus had never been healthy, but he'd never been weak, either. Running around and battling for both sides had left him with some small amount of lean, sinewy muscles. Enough to just vaguely outpace Black, who's more built towards force than speed (just by a bit), broader and heavier than him from good meals and good sleep.   
  
Therefore, Severus hits the end of the stairs and slows down enough to right his cowl and hair, if raking your fingers through it halfheartedly really counts, that is. He catches his breath, head tipped back from the run, and Sirius hits the landing just as he'd got his breath back. Sirius looks at him in outrage, not sure why he'd decided to chase the git but unwilling to lose, nonetheless. He grimaces and makes chase, another call on the edge of his tongue stopped just in time as Severus slips through the doors.   
  
It's a lie, he knows, that he  _ doesn't know  _ why he's following him. He's the reason the boys been mutilated, after all, and he wants to  _ apologize _ as much as that makes his guts twist. But it's hard to admit that even in the privacy of his own head.   
  
Severus, for his part, walks into the great hall suddenly self-conscious, everyone's heads pick up to stare at him, making his skin crawl, and he ducks his head and tugs his cardigan closer. The whole school isn't here, at least, but Severus finally manages to pick up his head and look for Lily.    
  
She's got one leg over the bench, half risen and staring at him in horror. He mistakes it for disgust,  _ of course he does, he always wonders who would want to associate with a freak, and why Lily does, but a scarred freak? That's a bit much, even for her endless kindness.  _   
  
He takes one step back, very aware of the eruption of murmurs and whispers but unable to distinguish any of them. Lily's wide green eyes lock with his black ones for a moment, and he waits with baited breath for her to reject him for no other reason than no one in two decades has actually accepted him.   
  
He isn't expecting her to lurch out of her seat, cursing when her foot gets caught against the bench and staggering away from it and into a full run that very nearly knocks him flat. He staggers, leant farther back than is comfortable, and grips her forearms to keep his balance. They're the same height, as usual, eye to eye. Hers fill with tears, and his return the gesture for completely different reasons.    
  
She's glad he's alive, and sorry she didn't believe him about Lupin, and sad for him about his scars.   
  
He's glad she's alive, and glad she doesn't hate him, and there's no sadness at all, because he would take a million billion  _ trillion  _ scars to just have one more moment with her. To get a potential lifetime in exchange for four is more than worth it. He buries his face in her shoulder. Vaguely, he notices that the upper years are whistling, and the lower years are making mock gag noises. He doesn't much care. He hugs her tightly, sobbing into her shoulder, and holds back the mantra on the tip of his tongue,  _ you're alive you're alive you're alive-- _   
  
Lily pulls back enough to look at his face, and her lip wobbles. "Do they hurt?"   
  
Severus blinks, completely floored by such a simple, considerate question. In fact, they do ache a little, and they hurt when he pulls them in an expression. But his neck hurts far worse. Still, he knows saying "no" would only frustrate her. Honesty, with Lily. Always. "A bit, but nothing too bad now that it's healed." She lets out a relieved breath.   
  
Severus has had a lot of time to figure out what started their friendships decay. It wasn't just outside influence. And it wasn't just one word. He knows that Lily is kind, and lovely, but she's also forgetful, and she can be a little self-centered. Not in the  _ put myself above others  _ way, in the  _ my public image is more important than my friend’s  _ way. Severus, at one point, had suffered from the same thing. Now, though, he knows he needs to nip it in the bud. He doesn't want to manipulate Lily into changing, no. He just wants to test the waters, see if she  _ can  _ change. "You didn't come to see me." He says, letting a tiny bit of accusation and a more than substantial amount of hurt into his tone.   


She looks almost surprised, grabbing her bag. Severus does what he and Albus had been practicing--instead of hiding recent memories, Severus hides the old ones, letting this body,  _ this  _ recollection of time to the front. He feels relief as he truly slips into the shoes of his fifteen-year-old self. The memories of this him are as vivid as his own, and his suspicions are confirmed. Lily was drifting more towards her friends in public for appearances, they were fighting constantly, Severus was spending less time with her for the same reason. Time to fix that--at least on his end. "I... well, Mary and I were studying for this new thing in herbology." She says lamely, ducking her head in embarrassment as they head towards the library for privacy.   
  
Severus looks at her incredulously. "I was gone for five days." He says, and now that his old life is on the back shelf, he feels hurt and disappointment seeping in. Lily looks at him guiltily. "Lily..." he says, quietly trailing off. They find a nook and Severus casts  _ muffilatio  _ before turning to face her. He takes a deep breath. He's always been chasing her, been hanging on so tightly. She's not really done the same these last few years.   
  
"Severus, I'm so sorry." She says, and it's earnest, this time around. Her eyes start watering again. "I just--Mary and Alice and Marlene keep telling me these awful things about you, and that I should just give up, and, and, and--" she sobs noisily, "I almost lost you! I've been so mean to you, ignoring you and blaming you for things you can't help! Merlin! The thought of you dying after you'd said what you did Tuesday--"   
  
Tuesday? Severus rakes through his vivid memories and, startlingly, can't find anything of interest. Tuesday was the night before the attack.    
  
"Lily...what did I say on Tuesday?" He asks, true confusion in his tone.    
  
"I--What? You don't remember?" She asks, her self-pity and guilt dissolving into concern.    
  
"No." He shakes his head. "Sometimes...when someone goes through something..." he tries to find the words. He doesn't like the thought of saying  _ trauma  _ aloud, because really, a werewolf attack is the least of his recent near-death experiences.    
  
Right, back shelf.   
  
"Traumatic?" Lily offers meekly, picking at the edge of the table.   
  
"Yeah." He replies quietly. "Sometimes they just forget things. What'd I say?"    
  
"Well, you said that...you said that I was only ever talking to you when I needed help with my homework." She says, sinking into her seat. "And I was really angry at you for it. But I thought back, and realized you were right. Even when you came to study, I'd just say I had to meet up with friends." Her face crumples. "As if you weren't my friend. As if you were just--just some  _ book  _ in the library and not a  _ person _ . Not my best friend. And when I heard you were in the infirmary; I was so scared of you still being mad at me for my being a terrible friend that I didn't come."    
  
Severus' face softens. He sighs softly, thinking for a moment about how to do this. Lily the way he'd remembered was a fierce medi-auror, a woman who invented a career and fought on the battlefield while helping the injured. That Lily would have been able to handle the truth about his death and his second chance just like Albus had. This Lily isn't there yet. She isn't mature enough, but that's okay. She will be, eventually, and then he can tell her the truth. He hates lying to her. "Lily, I'm not mad." He says, softly. "Not anymore. We've been fighting so much, and, well...I think I need to explain why I think that is and see if you agree."   
  
"Alright, Sev." Something blooms warm in his chest when he hears her say that name.    
  
"I..." he bites his lip, warring between war hardened adult and terrified, hormonal teenager. "First of all," he says, and casts and extra ward to make  _ absolutely sure _ no one's listening, "I'm not going to be a death eater, Lily." She slumps with relief, but he shakes his head, "At least not in the way you think." Her eyes harden, icy with anger, and he back peddles, grabbing her hands in his own and squeezing. "Lily, I'm going to--" he cuts off as a lock of his hair somehow manages to get into his mouth. He makes a face and tugs it back behind his ear, thoroughly ruining the seriousness of their conversation.    
  
The embarrassment is worth it when Lily stares at him for a moment before she smothers a hand over her mouth to stifle her sniggering. Her laughter is contagious, and it's a stupid thing to be laughing about, but they do. Eventually, Severus and she calm down, and he strokes his hair back with a slow breath.    
  
"You're going to...?" She prompts. He nods, steeling himself. He's thought about this a lot, but Lily won't tell anyone, and he can set a shield around the memory, anyways.    
  
"I'm going to spy for Dumbledore." He tells her, softly. "As a part of the order of the phoenix." Her eyes boggle. Understandable, given that very few know about the order right now. He also knows that Lily's already signed up, according to Dumbledore. He continues when she doesn't speak. "Part of that will be taking the mark. According to Lucius, Voldemort," Lily flinches, "is looking to put a set of eyes and ears in Hogwarts, and he's already considering me. Being a double agent is difficult."  _ I've got sixteen years of it under my belt.  _ "But it's what I'd be good at. I've showed you my occlumency, right?" She nods, understanding his meaning.   
  
Her brow knits. "W-why didn't you  _ tell me  _ about this?" Severus looks at the table.   
  
"Why didn't you tell me you'd already signed up for the Order?" He replies. She winces, assuming Dumbledore had told him. "Exactly, Lils." He says.   
  
"We need to stop lying to each other." She says shakily.   
  
"Yeah."   
  
"I...I don't know what to tell my friends."   
  
"Don't tell them anything, yet."   
  
Later, after Severus went to see Slughorn and Lily to visit Hagrid, they meet up at the astronomy tower. He feels sick at the sight of it, but he occludes that feeling and the reason for it ( _ Avada kedavra!) _ and curls himself up on the grate. Lily plonks down next to him. She looks him over and says, casually, "I like these, where'd you get 'em?" while tugging at his cowl and cardigan. His face reddens blotchily, and he turns away, embarrassed.    
  
She keeps staring at him until he relents, caving under her green gaze. "The headmaster got them for me." Her brows lift and he smiles crookedly. "I know, it weirded me out too, but I think he wants to get me in the good graces of politics." He says  _ politics  _ like others say slurs, and Lily laughs softly. "Something to do with my family on Mum's side."    
  
"If Malfoy is anything to go by, appearances are everything in that walk of life." She says, pushing him onto his back to lay her head on his chest.    
  
Severus chuckles softly. "Then Albus had better find someone else. I think Professor Sprout has mandrakes more attractive than me." It's supposed to be a joke, but it falls flat with the tense look Lily's giving him.    
  
"Do you really think that?" She asks, softly. "That you're ugly?" Severus turns his head to look over to where the railing is, past it and at the expanse of stars in the sky. Lily turns his head back to face her by a hand on his jaw, propping herself up on her other hand, splayed beside his head.   
  
She gazes at his pale, thinly angular face, with his mussed curly hair (to be fair it was quite greasy before this week, but she finds it looking quite nice now) and pouty lips always set into a frown, at his watery black eyes that are far too expressive for his own good--at least, without his occlumency shields--and at his nose, which is long and reminds her of that old painting she'd seen of Vlad the Impaler, long and narrow and, until very recently, crooked and gnarled. He has a weak chin and a bunch of moles (beauty marks, mum always says, Lily herself has one below her right eye) dotting his face like a constellation.    
  
He lets her look.    
  
"Sev..." she says, slowly, because quite suddenly she has an urge that's making her worried. Suddenly, Lily wants to kiss him, and show him how very, very beautiful she thinks he is. But she refrains, holding herself back from kissing every one of those little brown dots on his face and telling him how gorgeous he is with every press of her lips, from wiping that resigned, self-loathing look off his face.   
  
No, instead she clears her throat and knows she's ruined her chance when his eyes shutter closed. "Told you, Lils. It's okay," he laughs bittersweetly. "I know what I look like."    
  
Severus peeks an eye open as she smooths some errant curls back from his face, put there by the wind from the tower, and she forces the words out, "You really don't." She says, and it could have multiple meanings, and Severus is obviously thinking she's trying to save his feelings, but he still just lays his head back and holds her close to his chest. She can't bring herself to tell him the truth.    
  
Instead of sneaking back to their respective dorms alone, going their separate ways as they always did, Severus puts his comprehensive knowledge of the teachers patrols to use and walks her back to the Gryffindor tower. "Hey Sev?" She asks on a whim, because that feeling associated with wanting to kiss her Sev and convince him he's not ugly  _ also  _ wants to convince him he's not just become a book in the library to her. That she wants to fix things.   
  
"Yeah, Lils?" He grips the edge of his cardigan, fidgeting, and turns back around. The fat lady watches them curiously from her portrait.    
  
"There's a Hogsmeade trip tomorrow. Wanna go together? Like...like we used to?" She stammers, biting the inside of her cheek.    
  
"Like we used to." He confirms, sounding relieved.    
  
"I'll meet you in in the foyer?"   
  
"Yeah, see you there." He says, swallowing thickly. They part ways, and neither notice the Fat Lady tittering behind her hand as she swings closed.    
  
"Oh, young love." The portrait gushes. 


	3. III: Unity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hogsmead nonsense!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //i think I need to elaborate on this, as i'm not skilled enough to work it in clearly--In this story, Severus' occlumency works in a way that puts some things at the front and all the rest at the back of his mind. He puts the teen sev memories at the front, and the old-him memories in the back, therefore allowing him to remember "recent" memories that, for him, happened decades ago. It also means that he can switch between adult and teen Sev at times (though these will not be without comsequence)

Severus slips into the Slytherin common room and looks around. It's after curfew, and everyone ’ s either in their dorms or (in the case of upper years) slinking around the forbidden forest playing death eater. He sighs, taking the hallway to his room after crossing the long main room. Everyone else in his year is already asleep. He goes through his nightly routine and ends up in his bed, sinking into the mattress and staring at the ceiling. He yanks his curtains shut and tosses onto his side. Every time he closes his eyes, he's walking through that hell, or throwing curses at the wrong side, or--or--   
  
_ Severus... Please... _ _   
_   
**_Avada Kedavra!_ ** _   
_   
_ Wind, billowing in his ears, horror as he watches the headmaster fall, occluded away like everything else.  _ _   
_   
_ Draco's face, a mixture of horror--the first time he'd witnessed death? --and triumph, sickening.  _ _   
_   
_ How dare you stand where he stood?! _   
  
Green light floods into the room through the window outlooking the lake. He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he blinks his eyes open and rubs them to clear them of debris. His roommates are muttering to themselves outside his curtain--no, talking, but his spell muffles their words. He lets the spell fall away.   
  
"What'd'you mean, of course it was them! It always is, innit?" Says a familiar voice. Bertram Aubrey, who Severus has tutored in potions on occasion.    
  
"Why do you even care?" Sneers Avery.    
  
"Well you didn't see it, did you? Snape came into the great hall yesterday with three big scars on his face! It was right wicked, I'm tellin’ ya! Looked like somethin’ out of one a those muggle things-- uh, what're they called?"    
  
"How would  _ I  _ know?"    
  
"Films! Somethin' outta a film!" Aubrey exclaims, sounding very excited about Severus' misfortune.    
  
"Aubrey, exactly how much fire whiskey did you drink last night?" Rosier snaps, followed by Mulciber's familiar, boorish chortling.   
  
"Enough. C'mon, he's right there. Tell you what, I'll bet six sickle he hasn't got a scar on 'im." Mulciber says, resulting in groans from the rest of them.    
  
"We aren't exactly going to check while he's asleep, are you mad? You remember that seventh year who tried that--"   
  
"Yes, yes, I know--"   
  
"Screaming bloody murder, he was. Couldn't look at Snape without nearly crying."    
  
Severus decides to save them the trouble and risk associated with touching his warded curtains, though for a moment he  _ does  _ consider letting them try, and yanks them open, giving them his most  _ I'm disappointed in you  _ teachers glare. They all go very still. People seem to be doing that a lot, lately.   
  
"S-Snape!"   
  
"Blimey, Mate! What happened?"    
  
"Holy shit."   
  
The chorus of voices rapidly spiral into theoreticals on how he got the scars on his face, as if he isn't there. Rather like someone would speculate how a scratch came to be on their kitchen table. He and Albus have talked about what he would say about his scars--there are very few things that can scar a wizard beyond corrective means. Dark magic, and certain magical creatures. Like werewolves. Fortunately, werewolves are moving across the country like wildfires, joining the dark lords ranks. It would be easier to blame it on one of the wild ones--and take eyes off of Lupin.    
  
"Enough!" He yells over their prattling, getting their attention faster than he'd imagined. They stare at him, waiting for an explanation. "You all remember how werewolves are constantly moving around because of the Dark Lord?" He quite nearly said  _ Voldemort _ , but he knows what reaction  _ that  _ will get. They nod their heads. "Well, I was out getting ingredients for Felix Felicis in the forbidden forest and--"   
  
"You got attacked by a werewolf, Snape?" Mulciber says, sounding at first unconvinced. Fortunately, Mulciber has already been to death eater meetings, and may have seen some similar scars on other followers, because then he nods and says, "What's that old prat going to do about it?"    
  
Severus laughs bitterly, and jokingly says, "Detentions, I think. You know how he is." The calm, unbothered attitude Mulciber displayed is mimicked by the others--though a couple of them seem to fight themselves in order to remain aloof.   
  
He tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, still trying to wake up fully. He fiddles with it, twisting and tugging on the lone curl, thinking about he and Lily's impending trip to Hogsmeade. It's early, and the idiots he room with never pass up a chance to get handsy in a relatively unsupervised space with some ditzy broad(not that there aren't plenty of places in the castle for that), so he's got a while before they're due to leave. It's not that Severus has anything against women, no, it's more that the company his housemates prefer lean more towards pliant and bubbly than sharp and fiery. Lucius isn't like that, but he's graduated already. A burning sensation on the back of his neck prompts him out of his thoughts. He side-eyes them, sitting on his bed with one leg bent and pulled up near his chest, the other curled nearly under him half-Indian style. He probably looks the part of  _ coffee now, talk later  _ perfectly. His housemates are muttering and nudging each other while staring at him. Mulciber chuckles throatily, in the same way someone does when they're making fun of you.    
  
" _ What? _ " He snaps, flicking his hair out of his face, which only causes his housemates to dissolve into riotous laughter.    
  
"Oh, we just noticed these." Avery says, grabbing a fistful of his hair and yanking hard enough to sting. It makes an embarrassing, warm feeling zing down his spine.    
  
Severus flushes, hoping they take it for anger rather than something he doesn't want to think about or acknowledge. He squirms in Avery's grip with a curse, but it deserves noting that his angry snarl dissolves into a laugh a moment later as Avery loops an arm around his neck and tackles him backwards onto the bed with a boyish cry. Severus kicks and tugs as he and Avery tumble in the way many teenage boys do.    
  
In first year, it had horrified Severus, violence directly tied to bad memories, but letting out some steam and stress by wrestling around with friends is a good feeling. It was second year that they finally managed to talk him into trying it.   
  
_ "Severus, come on! What are you, scared?" Avery barks, his classmates gathered in a circle in the common room, surrounding a--well, it looks like a boxing match, of some sort. Odd, given that most of Slytherin was composed of the wealthy and elite. Well, even the rich have pastimes. He clears his throat.  _ _   
_   
_ "I don't think you want that, actually." He steps carefully into the circle of people, but not past it into the center, eyeing everyone nervously. _ _   
_   
_ "An why wouldn't we?" Aubrey says, wrinkling his nose. "You're a twig, mate." _ _   
_   
_ "Yeah, well none of you grew up in Cokeworth." He says icily, leaving out the  _ spinners end _ part. The  _ bad side of town  _ part. He's gotten in fights often enough down there, scrabbles in the street where someone else thought him easy pickings because of how much of a "twig" he is. His father isn't the only drunk with fists and rage in the shithole he calls a neighborhood.  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ "And?" Aubrey bites, cocking a brow at him. Rosier slaps him on the back.  _ _   
_   
_ "How about a twig for a twig, eh?" He asks, stepping out into the circle. Severus shakes his head. He's never really fought someone his own size. Better to start with what you're good at. He's honestly rather curious about all the fuss, and he needs somewhere to vent his anger towards the marauders, needs to stop bottling it up before it explodes. Sluggy never comes into the common room after eight anyhow, not like they'll get in trouble for it.  _   
  
_ "Mulciber." He says shortly, causing the whole gaggle of students to go silent. They stare at him in disbelief. "Come on, then." He takes off his second-hand outer robe and tie, leaving him in too-short slacks and a button up, which he rolls up the sleeves on methodically and carefully.  _ _   
_   
_ Someone tosses him a hair tie--Regulus, maybe? -- and he tugs back his greasy hair into a simple bun at the base of his neck. Mulciber steps out into the ring, sneering. He's the same age, but four inches taller and at least twice as broad. In short, he's a brick wall like Severus' father, but without the beer gut and extra foot of height. Easier, by all his own standards. He stands in the center, slows his breathing and occludes his mind--though he doesn't quite know yet that it's occlusion, just that he's stuffing all the irrelevant things into boxes for later, leaving room to plan and dodge and counter-- _ _   
_   
_ Mulciber swings his fist, a lumbering, full-strength thing. Sloppy, overconfident. Severus ducks it and throws a jab into his solar plexus. From there, Mulciber's like a charging bull. He huffs and charges, swinging almost blindly. Severus just keeps dodging until he makes a stupid mistake, leaving himself open (which he does a lot) and near the end he realizes his housemates have started hollering and cheering. He decks Mulciber in the face, watching him crumple and groan against the ornate wooden floor, clutching his bleeding nose.  _ _   
_   
_ "Way to go Snape!" _ _   
_   
_ "Hell yeah, mate!" _ _   
_   
_ "Can't believe ya had it in yah!" _ _   
_   
_ "Good on ya, mate!" _   
  
_ It was the first time he'd ever been cheered on. So, he kept doing it. At home, he learned that his father used to box on his off time, and the old man had shown him some things. Then he'd started drinking again, and Severus had continued on his own, managed to scrounge up enough money with odd jobs to get some lessons.  _   
  
He'd kept up boxing and even thrown in some other fighting styles as an adult (Minerva had been both delighted and horrified to find out about it and started betting on his matches) solely because it kept his anger in check. Some good things about it were also that no one on the battlefield of a  _ wizard’s  _ war was expecting to be fought the old-fashioned way, and his peers respect him for it. Avery is to thank for providing Severus with a hobby, and out of all the people Severus might turn to the light, Louis Avery is right up there with Lucius Malfoy. He's terrified enough of his parents to join the Dark Lord, but he doesn't have the courage to kill anyone. He'd been delegated to delivering messages last time around, lacking a spine enough to fight but loyal enough to be kept around. Severus wonders if he's dead, in that other future.    
  
Somehow, Severus manages to knock Avery's arm away from his windpipe and flip around, but he overestimates the space they have on the bed and both go tumbling off with an  _ oof _ , followed by whoops and cackles from their audience. A few more minutes of squirming and grappling lead to the end of the fight, with Avery's chest pushed firmly against the side of the bed and his arm twisted painfully against his back. Severus pants, thin chest heaving beneath the worn, faded black jumper he wears to bed. He blows some of his hair out of his face. "Done?" He asks him, breathlessly, twisting his arm a bit further.   
  
"Yield! I yield!" He exclaims, a note of laughter in his voice. "How on earth did you so good at that, mate?"    
  
Severus clears his throat; his face flushed a blotchy red from exertion and his hands pausing on Avery's arm.    
  
"Not sure. I've been working, at home. Maybe that's it?" He lies, looking at his laughing...well, not  _ friends. _ Avery and Aubrey are really the only two he'd consider more than acquaintances. Rosier, Mulciber, and Wilkes--Mulciber, especially-- remind him too much of his father. Violent, cowardly drunks. He looks at Aubrey, Mulciber, and Wilkes, who are all laughing at them, and wonders idly if this is what the Marauders get up to in their tower. He typically wouldn't degrade himself to such nonsense outside of the ring, but he can't help liking the adrenaline that comes with a good fight.    
  
If there's one thing that Severus has learned, it's that both sides of this war, (both the very real one and the childish feud of one between Slytherin and Gryffindor), it's that the sides aren't too very different. Both are full of corruption, of course, but they're also made up of children. Slytherin's can't always be aloof, and Gryffindors can't always be brave. They're all  _ people _ , not colors and quidditch teams. Not dark wizards and light wizards.   
  
He lets Avery go, watching as he hops up onto Severus' bed, grinning. It looks like a light bulb has gone off in his head. "Oh, also, Severus. I wanted to talk to you and Aubrey about that new potions assignment if you have time."   
  
"When, then?" He says, knowing full well that the assignment is already done, he'd seen it laying on the table the night before.    
  
"Now? It's just a couple small things."    
  
"Alright. Let me get dressed." He picks a neatly folded outfit out of his trunk and heads for the bathroom. He won't be trudging around the common room in his PJs--which consist of a holey black jumper a size too big and a grey pair of too-long flannel pajama bottoms--it kind of leaves something to be desired in the  _ intimidation  _ section. Everyone else gets dressed together, and though he's always excluded himself from that encompassment, he's feeling everyone staring at him again and pauses. "Yes?" He drawls.    
  
"It's just...they can't be any worse than the ones on your face, right?" Aubrey simpers. Severus had, at first, wondered why on earth the boy was in Slytherin to begin with. But Aubrey is the kind of cunning that comes with hustling and card-counting, manipulating people with his stumbling, innocent personability, a wolf in sheep’s clothes. Nearly the exact opposite of Severus, who is cold and cutting on the outside and soft and malleable under all the layers of ice, using manipulation as a means to an end and a shield to protect himself with instead of letting it become part of him. Avery is neither; he's snide, aristocratic, and unwilling to get his hands dirty despite being tirelessly ambitious.    
  
Eventually his housemates had managed to beat out of him (figuratively, mostly) why he doesn't ever change or shower around people. He's never  _ shown  _ them, but he had told them that he had a bunch of scarring. They hadn't asked who or how. Slytherin is the place where the cunning and ambitious go, the children who learned to strive for greatness to retaliate against their parents not paying attention, the ones who learned to lie and manipulate in order to avoid a belt or hand, and the ones who stick with their own and no one else because one of the main red flags of abuse is isolation. Not that all of them in Slytherin are victims. No, there are a good number of prats, too.   
  
Severus stares blankly at them, and despite the scars on his face and neck being visible at all times, the  _ other  _ scars being on display for anyone makes his skin crawl.  _ Especially  _ after what happened at the end of this year last time around. He thinks about the little horizontal lines on his inner thighs, the ugly words cut into the flesh just left and down of his ribs, and shakes his head, leaving for the still empty bathroom. There's one for each dorm, and he slips inside, closing and locking the door a little more firmly than he probably should've. He sets a ward for good measure, putting his clothes on the sink.    
  
He pauses.   
  
Casting about, Severus realizes his wand is missing. He'd  _ just  _ cast a spell. How in Merlin's name did he lose his wand in the span of a few seconds? He's  _ never  _ done that before. His wand is too important to set down mindlessly. He rummages through his little pile of clothes, shaking things out and feeling around the fabric for good measure.   
  
"Oi, Snape!"    
  
"Yeah, Mulciber?"   
  
The door handle jiggles, and he hears Mulciber’s lumbering gait thump against the floor as he staggers back with a yowl. "What the ever lovin'  _ fuck _ was that?!"   
  
Severus unlocks and opens the door. "Sorry, I warded the door." Severus says, peeking his head out. In all honesty he's not feeling particularly remorseful, though. Mulciber stares at him in disbelief.    
  
"With what wand?" He asks, holding up the missing item in question. Severus pales, swallowing hard.    
  
Had he done that wandlessly? That ward is a favorite of his--his own design. It lets people in on the intent of the caster and the receiver. Should Severus want no one in, no one would come in;  _ unless  _ there's a true, life and death emergency. If he only wants  _ certain  _ people in, only those people will be able to pass. It rejects people by both shocking them with electricity and turning the doorknob white-hot. He glances down, watching the metal in question hiss as it cools in the open air.    
  
It's also far too dynamic for someone like him to cast without a wand. Dumbledore? Maybe, given time. He reaches out to take the wand from Mulciber and he clicks his tongue, holding it back above his head.   
  
"How the fuck did you do that, you little half-blooded whelp?" Jealousy tints Mulciber's tone. He grimaces, knowing Mulciber is likely to drag this out.   
  
"Accidental magic." He hisses, "Now give me my wand, Mulciber!" His face goes a bit blotchy with the anger he'd always had as a child. The big oaf of a man is always a source of annoyance for him.   
  
"Codswallop." Mulciber spits. Severus, who had warned Mulciber very clearly that the next time he touched his wand he'd get kneed in the bullocks, follows up on his threat. The bastard thinks being taller than everyone else in their year makes him a king, or something. Severus plucks his wand from the hand of a red faced, crumpled Mulciber, who curses at him from his knees. In hindsight, it's rather surprising to remember such petty things, even while occluding his old life.    
  
Severus bends at the waist, roughly forcing Mulciber to face him, and says, with a disappointed exasperation in his deep, smooth voice, "Now, you know damn well I warned you what would happen the next time you touched my wand. Are we clear on the fact that it will happen again, should you touch my wand again?"   
  
"Crystal." He wheezes out, eyes watering.    
  
"Perfect." He murmurs, slamming the door in the man’s face. He's never really much cared for a fair fight. Putting Mulciber in place requires dirty tricks and quick thinking, otherwise Severus would end up being smothered by a pillow in his sleep. If he punched him in the face, he ran the risk of breaking his nose.    
  
He showers quickly and efficiently. It's hard to shake off the habit of conserving water; in fact, that's one thing he never grew out of, even as an adult. After rubbing the leave-in hair product Albus had bought him into his damp black locks he flips his head over and scrunches them up like the bottle says. This time he remembers to use his wand, casting a quick drying charm Lily had shown him one day. Lily has a  _ lot  _ of hair, it's usually all the way down her back, and it makes drying it a pain. This spell only takes a couple seconds.    
  
He shrugs into his shirt and buttons it up, following with well-fitting slacks, a black jumper, and his new long, warm wool coat. He pulls his cowl over his head, and, looking in the mirror, realizes Albus' reason for buying it. A scarf can be unwound, the ends tugged on, all variety of things. Not to mention the cowl hugs his neck in a way that means it’s not likely to be dislodged. 

He'd given him it to hide the scar on his throat.    
He buttons up the coat, which reminds him quite a lot of his frock. The sleeves have a lot of buttons, the cut is similar, and when he buttons it up, he almost looks like the old him. A much younger old-him.    
  
When he steps out of the bathroom Avery grabs his arm and tugs him out into the common room before Mulciber can decide to stop sulking and wring Severus' neck instead. They find one of the many curtained alcoves made for studying, and Aubrey follows close behind. The booths are for studying mostly, but they aren't the first to commandeer one for the sole purpose of private conversation. Severus casts his spell over the little nook and looks at them expectantly. "Well?"   
  
"Oh! Right. Uhm. It's just that, well, erm--"   
  
"Half the school watched you and Lily hugging and sniveling in the great hall yesterday, mate. What do you think You-Know-Who's gonna say about publicly hugging a mudblood?" Severus has to work quickly to occlude all of the anger and loathing he associates with that word lest he lunge across the table and strangle Avery right now. Something must show on his face, because Aubrey shrinks back in his seat.    
  
"I have it covered, Avery." He says, in just the sort of slimy, conspiratory tone the fellow teen will appreciate. Something inside of him lurches at how easily he lies.   
  
"But--" Aubrey starts, wide eyed and confused.   
  
"If he says he has it covered, he has it covered." Avery relents. That was almost unnervingly easy. Severus glances between them, wondering why they would trust him. The short answer is that they probably don't.    
  
A long, drawn out pause.   
  
"Are you two.... uh...?" Aubrey's cheeks redden, his honey-blond curls bouncing with the nervous bob of his head. Severus feels his face getting warm.   
  
"We're best friends." He says in a tone that heavily implies that Aubrey isn't immune to ending up like Mulciber.    
  
Another pause.   
  
"Are we done?" Severus asks without it truly being a question. He slides out of his seat and lets the silencing spells fall. 

****

###

****

Going to Hogsmeade has always been fun--at least until last year, when Lily had said she was going to stay back and study, only for him to find her with her friends in Zonko's later that day. That had stung. Now, though, he tries to push that aside, tugging on his fingerless gloves and ducking his head against the cold as he stands outside, waiting for the rest of the students to gather. Waiting for Lily, really.   
  
He feels nervousness simmer under his skin, eyes flitting. Someone bumps into him, shoulders brushing, and Severus automatically flicks his wand into his hand, heartbeat accelerating.    
  
A hand slaps down heavily on his shoulder, making him whip around and, a curse on the tip of his tongue, raise his wand. "Sev!" Lily exclaims, looking at him in worried bemusement. "It's just me, Sev." He relaxes slightly, Lily smiling and patting his shoulder, brushing snow off of him. He returns her smile with a crooked one of his own.   
  
"Sorry--"   
  
"I know, you don't like being snuck up on." She says with a laugh. He frowns, as just two weeks ago she'd yelled at him for exactly that.   
  
_ Grow up, Sev! I can't help how quietly I walk-- _ _   
_   
_ And I can't help my reflexes! _ _   
_   
Lily's smile wavers and then buckles. "I know what I said before, but I was being immature. Especially ... Especially right now, it's understandable for you to be jumpy." She looks at her feet, scuffing her foot in the snow, forming an absent-minded L with the toe of her boot. She traces it back and forth, snow crunching rhythmically.    
  
"It's fine, Lily." Severus reassures, his hand coming up to squeeze her arm awkwardly. Some of her hair gets caught under his hand and tugged on during the motion, causing her to hiss. "Sorry." He says, releasing her abruptly. She laughs at him, shaking her head.    
  
"Come on," she says, "Scrivenshaft's first, right?" Remembering their old routine is rather touching of her, but he wonders if she remembers why they did it in the first place. It brings a shameful feeling down his spine to settle heavily into his gut, the knowledge that he hindered their Hogsmeade experience every year with his pathetic little fits. When he started teaching, Minerva and Poppy had tried to reassure him that it wasn't something to be ashamed of or embarrassed about.   
  
_ You've been through a trauma _ , they'd say. Sod trauma, he still says. Loads of people go through trauma and make it out okay.    
  
Back shelf. Right. Keep your head together, Snape.   
  
"Sev?"   
  
"Ah, yeah. Sorry. Scrivenshaft's." He glances at her as they walk, their paces syncing and shoulders touching.   
_   
_ _ Just like old times.  _ _   
_   
They pause in the crowd, letting others pass with all of Lily's ever encompassing kindness. Eventually, they manage to wade their way through the crowd of Hogwarts students, Severus' heart rate climbing the whole time, his breathing quickening, his wand in his hand--   
  
"We're here!" Lily exclaims, low enough that it's only an exclamation to him, and only because of their proximity. He smiles at her, but it's fragile and doesn't meet his eyes. It surprises him when Lily reaches over and brushes a snow-clogged curl out of his face, smiling reassuringly. The motion grounds him, and he wants to lean his face into her palm, but he refrains. He's not going to overstep his bounds and jeopardize this thing they have; this crippled friendship they're putting through rehab. A relapse would crush him, on that front.    
  
_ She will understand you, and she will be your anchor. Without them, my servants tend to crumble. _   
  
Death had sounded so very sure. But  _ will  _ she understand him? Understand the  _ real  _ him, the thirty eight year old death eater who was scrabbling at the precipice of redemption, trying with all his heart and soul and falling just short, too full of anger and despair to truly climb without losing things along the way?   
  
She will, he knows (he hopes, he doesn't know, not really, but lying has gotten him this far) and he just has to trust in that.   
  
_ Back shelf, right, got it. _   
  
"Better?" She asks. And he realizes his breathing has slowed to match hers, so awfully close to her. Their height difference has always been nonexistent, and it shows las her kind evergreen eyes check him over innocently, making sure he's okay, because that's just what Lily does. She puts others first. It makes him want to weep, suddenly. She's  _ alive, she's alive and wonderful and kind and so, so beautiful--she's here, she's  _ **_alive._ **   
  
Scrivenshaft is the place most students put off until last, and they can avoid the start of the trip rush this way. Most head straight to Honey dukes, but it's so packed this early on, it makes Severus' head swim. He nods jerkily, "Yeah, Lils, I'm fine."    
  
She's gone all still and serious again, searching his eyes, and wipes a tear away. When had he started crying? It's just the one, he thinks. A lone tear tracking down his pale face, now caught on Lily's thumb. She bites her lip, most likely about to say  _ are you sure? We should talk about this, later, Sev, I'm worried.  _ Maybe she does, but his inner thoughts drown it out.   
  
_ She's  _ **_alive_ ** _ , oh, dear sweet maker she's  _ **_here--_ ** **_  
_ **   
"Hey! Sniv--ah, Snape!" Severus flinches, coincidentally moving away from their shared breathing space, safe and cozy in the deserted stationary shop, as Sirius Black comes trouncing in. Except he's not, really, not swaggering mindlessly, pompous and arrogant. His steps are careful, his shoulders a bit hunched. Sirius clears his throat awkwardly. "Can I talk to you? Alone?"    
  
Severus scoffs. "Do you really think I'm so stupid as to blindly follow you to who knows where?"    
  
"To the alley behind Zonko’s, or, hell, anywhere, if you put up that freaky silencing spell thing. I'm not into dark magic y'know, but--"   
  
Severus can't help his laugh-- _ dark magic _ , it just goes to show how clueless everyone really is about the distinction. "My spell is not dark magic, Black." He says, laughter still bubbling up between his words.  _ Not that one, at least. _   
  
"Then what is it?" Sirius asks, cocking a brow. "You said yourself one day, it sacrifices--"   
  
"The sounds within its perimeter, to create the buzzing. Since the sacrifice isn't anything organic, it isn't dark. It's gray magic. Neither here nor there. Professor McGonagall talked about it once." Lily recites, looking quite happy to have snubbed Black's little rant before it could even start.   
  
"Because any permanent transfiguration magic is gray, sacrificing the original object to make the new one." Severus adds, feeling something warm inside of him at Lily's defending of him.    
  
"Alright, alright! Just--come here, will you?" Reluctantly, Severus agrees, following Sirius to a more secluded corner of the shop. Lily can still see them, but the spell puts them out of earshot.    
  
"Look, Snive-- _ Snape _ , I'm...I'm sorry," he chokes on the word, and Severus stares at him, "I--It was never meant to go like that. We only--we only..." Sirius, realizing he'd started to degrade into defending himself, trails off. Severus is looking at him oddly, but not unkindly, (or, well, as  _ not unkindly  _ as he's ever looked at Sirius) "It was shitty, and terrible, and absolutely..." Sirius chokes on his words again, and Severus realizes he's looking at his scars. "Oh, Merlin." He whispers, shakily. "You're going to have those for the rest of your life, and I'm the reason for it--I can't--I can't bloody apologize enough, I really can't, there's nothing I can say, if I had a bloody time turner I'd use it, you know. I'd never do it, if I had the chance to go back." Black has degraded into rambling, and Severus feels an uncomfortable bit of understanding.    
  
After all, he'd done terrible, awful things. And he'd held those same sentiments, albeit silently. He still can't bring himself to forgive Black, not now, so soon. But he also can't bring himself to resent him to the end of time for it. Deciding to voice this conflicting sentiment, Severus says, "It's not alright, Black," the boy deflates visibly, " _ But _ ...maybe--maybe it will be, one day. I can't forgive you right now, you can't possibly ask that of me, not when I see the results every day in the mirror and relive that night. But in time? Perhaps I will be able to."    
  
Black nods awkwardly, clearing his throat again. "I get that." He whispers, and Severus is surprised to find that he believes that Black does truly understand it, at least in theory. "Also, Dumbledore talked to me and James about the magical restraining order. If that’s what you need to feel safe again? I can give you it. I just...I know what it's like, y'know? To be afraid of something at home."  _ Someone _ , his eyes say. But how does Black know about any of his home life. The teen shifts back a step, looking at his feet when he sees the perplexed expression on Severus' face. "When, uh, when Madame Pomphrey was trying to sedate you and on the way to the infirmary you said some things. Mainly  _ Tobias _ and  _ stop  _ but once...once you said  _ da, stop _ and uh, it kind of woke me up." Sirius rubs the back of his neck. "Right slap in the face, the thought that your home life might be as bad as mine."    
  
Severus nods curtly. "Thank you for apologizing, Sirius. I really hadn't expected it from someone like you." Sirius winces, but takes the insult without any fight.    
  
"He also gave us two years’ worth of detentions and banned us from quidditch for the rest of the year." Sirius says dryly, but he doesn't seem too angry. Severus tilts his head a bit.   
  
"You aren't angry about that?"    
  
"It's leagues better than Azkaban, don't you think?"   
  
For a moment, Severus remembers Sirius, ragged and wild like an animal, dressed in Azkaban's prison uniform, half-mad from dementors and screaming at him to go home and play with his chemistry set. It is an entirely different picture to the sheepish, irresponsible child in front of him. He turns, ready to rejoin Lily.   
  
A sharp pain stabs through his head, enough to white out his vision for a moment, and he gasps, pressing the heel of his hand to his temple. Lily is looking at quills, last time he checked, and has her eyes off of him. Sirius, on the other hand, reaches out and catches him by the shoulder. "You alright, mate?"   
  
"Yeah, I just...a moment. I need a moment." True to his words, the pain passes, and he finds his memories back in correct order, the things from the old him pressed as far back as possible.    
  
He knows it'll come back as soon as he goes outside--his migraines tend to worsen when moving and in direct light and calm down to near nothing when he's standing still. The price of Occlumency, unfortunately.   
  
But, on the bright side, he always carries a migraine potion on him. It tastes like vinegar and ash, but he fishes the simple, fingers span vial out of his coat and uncorks it. "Oh." Sirius says, brows raised, "My cousin Narcissa gets migraines, too, you know."    
  
Severus does know, he made her potions for years--his head starts aching more fiercely, and he downs the potion with a grimace.    
  
"Tastes like piss, does it?" Sirius quips. Severus ignores him, leaving the corner to find Lily again, letting the Muffilatio fall on his way. She's looking at new quills, but pauses when she sees him, glancing over her shoulder. "What about an owl, Sev?"    
  
"An owl?"    
  
"For your birthday. Or Christmas, I mean." Severus tilts his head, considering for a moment, and then shakes it.    
  
"My father'd set it on fire." He leans against the shelf, folding his arms over his chest.    
  
"Oh..." Lily says, looking very sad about that particular statement. She bites her lip, side eyeing him for a moment. "How about--"   
  
"Lils, you'll think of something, you always do. And it isn't like you need to get me a present anyhow." He says. "Your friendship is plenty."   
  
She huffs. " _ No one  _ should go without presents on Christmas and their birthday, Sev."   
  
"Not even Voldemort?" He asks dryly, eyes widening a bit at the slip. He coughs sheepishly, but she just stares before laughing aloud.   
  
"Well, I suppose no-one but you-know-who." She says, chortling. He smiles crookedly at her, eyes light with mirth. Lily gathers her items and heads to the counter, turning around to make a funny face at him before setting everything down. The clerk chatter idly for a moment while she rings everything up.    
  
"Why would I need an owl, anyhow? I don’t really mail anyone." He says as they start down the street.   
  
"A cat?"   
  
"What? No. He'd set a cat on fire, too." Severus says, despite quite liking cats. Lily has one named Hastur, a little black fluff ball with huge yellow eyes and a tuxedo collar.    
  
"Toad?"   
  
" _ No _ Lily, I do not need a--" Severus trails off as they pass the pet shop that opened last year (by the time he started teaching it had been long gone), because in one of the stacks of cages is a very gorgeous, fluffy dog. It's  _ huge _ , and nearly completely black. It almost looks like a husky without the markings, but it's far too large for that.    
  
He mainly sees it because it reminds him vaguely of his Animagus due to the odd coloration--a black fox.    
  
"Dog?" Lily asks with a broad grin. He sighs heavily. "You've seen my house, Lils! How on earth would I fit him in there? Or afford to feed and care for him? I don't even  _ want  _ a pet, and dogs aren't allowed at Hogwarts."   
  
"Hagrid has fang! Worst comes to worst you could let Hagrid watch him." She says. They're arguing over a dog he doesn't have and can't afford, and he groans loudly.    
  
"Why are you so set on this, Lils?"   
  
"Because! Everyone has a familiar, even that Peter Pettigrew does! And Nelson! Nelson doesn't even  _ like  _ animals. And I think there's something special about this one. Look at him!" She says, and as if on que the dog barks in his direction, widening his eyes. He has a bad track record with canines anyhow, and he has no idea why the huge beast had caught his eye to begin with. He shakes his head, saying  _ no _ his firmest voice, and starts towards Zonko’s.    
  
Lily doesn't catch up for a good few minutes, and he eyes her suspiciously.    
  
"What did you do, Lily?" He asks exasperatedly. She grins at him.   
  
"Nothing. Why would you think I'd do anything?" She asks him, an innocent lilt to her voice.    
  
He snorts and continues walking. Lily buys a handful of the candies that make you make animal sounds, as well as a bottle of hot sauce that literally makes steam come out of your ears. He doesn't touch anything, having had quite a few of these things used on him in the past. Well, that is until he sees something that makes colored bubbles come out of your mouth like they do when your underwater. He buys a red and a green one.    
  
Eventually Lily drags him to a bench, warm cocoa in both of their hands. They sit facing each other, sipping in comfortable silence with their legs tangled together and their backs against the armrests. Idle chatter permeates the silence every once and a while. A question about how his classes are and vice versa, another about the new camera Lily bought this summer.   
  
"Hey Lils?" He asks, softly.   
  
"Yeah?"    
  
"I, uh. You never...you never asked what happened, to give me these..." he gestures to his face. She winces, looking at the ground. "It's not like you to avoid questions like that."   
  
"I sort of already know." Lily says sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck.    
  
Severus stares at her for a moment. "How?"   
  
"I hexed it out of James. He came into the common room all covered in blood--" her voice chokes off, "And the next day I heard you were in the infirmary. Dots weren't too hard to connect."    
  
"So, let me get this straight--you didn't visit me because of peer pressure, but still hexed potter into next year to find out what he'd done to me?" Severus asks dryly, but there was a friendly sort of mocking laced into it that makes Lily laugh embarrassedly.    
  
"You'd already told me Remus was a werewolf, and I didn't believe you really, but I blurted it out as a possibility when he wouldn't talk, and he went white as a sheet." She explains softly.    
  
"Lily...I..." A snowball hits Severus on the side of the head, exploding into a shower of white powder that clings to her hair and clothes. "Of all the fucking times--" Severus mutters under his breath, swinging his legs over Lily’s and sitting up properly, looking for someone to Hex for that.    
  
For once it isn't the marauders picking on him. Instead it's Aubrey, Mulciber, Avery, and Rosier. Lily wrinkles her nose, but they aren't glaring or hexing her. They're all focused on Severus, packed snowballs piled at their feet.    
  
"Hey Snape, want to have a snowball fight?"    
  
"Since when do you do snowball fights, Rosier?"   
  
"Since now, obviously." The brunette chucks a snowball at Severus' chest.    
  
"I'm busy." He tells them dryly, brushing off the snow.   
  
"Your mud--" Mulciber chokes on his words as Aubrey elbows him in the gut, groaning.   
  
"Your Gryffindor can join in too. Not quite fair, with five people." Aubrey says.   
  
"Three teams of two?" Lily says, ignoring the almost-slur, as Severus opens his mouth to refuse. He turns his head to look at her so fast his neck cracks with the motion, eyes wide.   
  
"Lily...?"   
  
"Hell yeah, Evans!" Aubrey whoops.   
  
"It's been a while since I've had a good, large snowball fight. I'm not going to turn it down on prejudice, because that'd make me just as bad as them." She explains in hushed tones. His slack expression slowly turns into a grin.    
  
"Let’s show them what two kids from Cokeworth can do, yeah?"    
  
"You bet." She returns, gathering up snowballs.    
  
The fight is large, other students tacking themselves onto the teams as they go, drawn by the simpleness of the activity in an extremely complicated time. Fabian and Gideon Prewett, mischievous twins and the original versions of the infamous Weasley Twins each end up with Severus and Lily, while Sirius, James, Peter, and Lupin all congregate into their own new team. Two Ravenclaws whose names he doesn’t know team up with Avery and Aubrey, Evans and Mulciber backed by an older Slytherin and a younger Hufflepuff--to everyone’s infinite surprise. Regulus Black busies himself creating forts out of snow, aided by Frank Longbottom and Mary MacDonald. Soon enough everyone in Hogsmeade has either gathered to watch and cheer or join in.    
  
Severus has managed to nail Mulciber in the face at least twice, hitting a few others in the chest. He also hit Potter with such a well packed snowball his glasses flew off his face, and he can't remember having this much fun with this many people since that day fighting in the common room, but this is so much larger and more inclusive. For a moment, houses don't exist, the war isn't on, and Hogwarts students can be just that, students. He ducks behind one of the forts, pressed shoulder to hip with Lily as they heave for breath.    
  
The Prewett twins have charmed the snowballs to curve, hitting people by swerving around their forts and trees, and the crowd that's gathered has started making more snowballs for them. Really, it's probably the most unified the collective houses of Hogwarts have been in an age. Severus heaves a deep breath.    
  
"Ready?"   
  
"Ready!" She exclaims. They both jump up from their cover, back in the fray. People are laughing and shoving snow down each other’s shirts.    
  
And just as quick as it starts, it ends, everyone’s heads turning guiltily to the headmaster, who has arrived at the scene. It's gotten dark, as well, and both McGonagall and Dumbledore are watching all the guilty faces with a mixture of delight and amusement.    
  
"I must say," Dumbledore says, to the collective silence of everyone present, "this is the most students I've seen working together in harmless fun in fifty years, at least. Who came up with this idea?" The original teams step forward hesitantly; Severus and Lily, Aubrey and Avery, and Mulciber and Rosier. "To the rival houses, Slytherin and Gryffindor, I grant fifty points." Albus lets the whoops and cheers go on for a moment, "to each student, for showing commendable comrade and acceptance to one of their opposing houses."    
  
The other houses groan. "Also! Twenty-five points for every student who participated tonight. I think this will become a lasting tradition." His eyes twinkle behind his half-moon glasses as the students holler and cheer into the night.


	4. IV: The Seven of Six

Lily Rosamund Evans is, by far, the odd one out among her friends, despite being so popular with her peers. Somehow, people have managed to construct this perfect bubble of expectations for a sparkling, perfect Lily Evans. Until very recently, she'd been quite alright with all of these things, too thrilled with being right and properly popular to care. People put her on a pedestal and become disappointed and huffy when she doesn't meet their outrageous, bizarre demands. All without her even being told what said expectations are to begin with! There are, of course the typical things. She's expected to drench her hair in all sorts of products to keep it shiny and neat, as it tends to frizz, at least from the shoulders down. She's expected to slather on makeup that hides the wildfire of large, blotchy freckles on her face, put thick mascara on her eyelashes though it clumps and looks quite ugly on her as a result--she can never quite get it right--and a variety of powders and creams above and below her eyes.   
  
She's supposed to keep her clothes completely wrinkle free, know how to cook, to clean, to sew, and if not, she should _ at least  _ know spells for them! Oh, and heavens forbid she actually learn any proper useful fighting spells. Be a healer, Lily, it's a nice, safe career.    
  
There's too much fire in her blood for "safe". Mary understands this, and so does Alice, but Dorcas, Marlene, and Belle are quite content with all of those heavy expectations, as if its natural. She's supposed to walk a certain way, and be "polite" and "delicate" because no one knows about the spitfire little girl who crept around the bad neighborhood with her best friend, getting into scraps and cursing with the best of them, having distance spitting contests with her Da and Sev while the two of them stood on either side of her father, perched on the middle rung of the wooden fence on their property. Laughing at how gross it was, because Sev didn't much like it either. They much preferred finding snails to name and "rescue" in her mum’s gardens and trying to sneak up on the birds in the old oak at Their Spot. Having him teach her how to punch and kick that old, rickety punching bag of his dads and then sneaking her out the basement by giving her a leg up and through the slotted window when Tobias comes home drunk and hollering. She's also been allowed to help her uncle Ritchie fix his motorbike and get grease all over her brand-new floral dress (Mum had been livid, but it was one of her favorite memories). She ended up being rubbish at it earlier on, but unlike Sev she knows how to change a tire.    
  
That doesn't mean she doesn't like talking with her girlfriends, and that she doesn't like dresses and flowers and painting her nails. No, she likes those things, too. She likes admiring the butterflies in the park and shopping for new shoes. She's allowed to have both, Sev's always said (and if he proved it to her by painting his own nails black, because she didn't have to be dainty to be a girl and he didn't have to be macho to be a bloke, well, he told her the belting from his dad was worth it).    
  
But now those things are starting to chafe again, those heavy expectations hanging over her head. And her friends aren't helping, trying to coax her (because  _ bully  _ is too harsh a word, too  _ boyish  _ a word for what they do, tittering and muttering and whinging at her like Tuney used to at home, before she came to hate her) into cramming herself into a cookie cutter shape she wasn’t meant to fit, cutting things off along the way. She thinks that maybe if she and Sev hadn't started working to fix their friendship she would've let them. Given up all her rough housing and motorbike fixing.    
  
Instead, Severus has managed to open her eyes as to what they're doing.    
  
Right now, even.    
  
"Lily,  _ come on _ , who cares about that slimy git anyhow--"   
  
"Says the one who shagged  _ Sirius Black!"  _ Alice interrupts, glaring at Dorcas. Lily's surprised by her friend’s defense. Alice has never approved of Severus, not once. Mary has always been quite indifferent regarding Severus, so her support is less out of the ordinary, at least. Her ginger brows raise as she looks between her two friends.    
  
"What's wrong with Sirius?!" Dorcas squawks, like some sort of indignant pelican. Alice laughs disbelievingly.   
  
"Oh I dunno, maybe that he's a cruel, bullying toe rag whose been in the pants of half the girls in our year?" Alice snaps. Lily doesn't much remember how this whole thing had started, only that Dorcas has been insulting Severus since the beginning of it, and it's been fifteen minutes.   
  
"By the way, Dorcas, have you been getting any strange itches lately?" Mary says, her tone implying something far nastier than her words already do.    
  
Dorcas gapes open mouthed at the two of them, looking much like one of the fish Lily's father caught one summer.    
  
"Why is this even a comparison to begin with?" Lily groans, "It's not like I've fucked Sev anyhow!" She exclaims. Dorcas, Marlene, and Belle all wince collectively at her language. They always do that, and she doesn't feel bad in the slightest for it.   
  
In a kinder, teasing tone, and with a Cheshire cats grin, Mary sidles up to her and says, "Not yet, anyways."    
  
Lily picks up a pillow from her bed and whacks Mary in the face with it.  _ Hard. _ She groans melodramatically and swoons onto her own bed with a "Woe is me! I am defeated! Bleh..." the back of her hand pressed to her forehead. Lily shakes her head at her friends’ antics.    
  
"Have you considered that I just don't  _ want  _ to go?" She asks, raising her brows.    
  
"It's  _ definitely  _ not that!" Mary crows, grinning from ear to ear. Lily hits her with another pillow.   
  
"Hush up, Mary!"    
  
"She got Severus a--mmm!" Mary cries out indignantly as Lily does her best to smother her with a bright pink pillow.    
  
"Shut up, you!"    
  
"She-got-Severus-a-dog!" Mary exclaims as she fights the pillow away from her face, the words rushing together in one gasping breath.    
  
Lily groans loudly, slumping back on her haunches lest she murder her best girlfriend by accident. "It's his sixteenth birthday, alright? He got me something really special. Least I can do is repay the favor!" She exclaims.   
  
"What  _ did  _ he get you? It was some sort of potion, right?"   
  
Lily flushes despite their obviously morbid curiosity. "Felix felicis." She mumbles, barely audible. It was extremely valuable, extremely hard to find, and especially touching given he'd elected to give it to her before the first quidditch match of the year. Lily's birthday is in September, after all.    
  
"What was that?" Marlene asks her, frowning and leaning closer. Mary is gawking at her.   
  
"He got you  _ that  _ for your birthday?!"   
  
"He made it, actually." Lily says sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck in embarrassment. Really, all the time and effort made it difficult for her  _ not  _ to chip in all her recent savings and buy him the big, exotic magical dog. He'd looked so taken with it, after all.   
  
"What did he make her? Seriously, what was it?" Dorcas asks in frustration as Mary whistles and falls back into the pillows, muttering  _ Holy shite _ under her breath.    
  
"Felix felicis." She says again, this time louder. "Two dozen doses worth.    
  
"And what did  _ you  _ get him?" Alice asks, now thoroughly invested in this branch of conversation, wondering what sort of dog would be worth two dozen doses of luck potion.   
  
"It's a magical breed of Alaskan Malamute. Norwegian Malamute, the man said. Huge thing," Lily motions with her hands, causing their eyes to widen, "pitch black, silver eyes, highly intelligent. They have a wizard’s life span, and this one was about sixteen. Perfect companions, loyal, good with all sorts of animals, and kids too. I know that when he moves out, he wants to get a bird of some sort for messages." She explains, clearing her throat awkwardly as they all continue to stare. "Originally, they were the companions of warriors--unlike they're muggle counterpart, they're native to Norway."   
  
"Whoa whoa whoa--" Belladonna, their resident history buff, says, "Slow down there, Lils.  _ The  _ Norwegian Malamutes? Like, the ones that Seidr users in Norway had?" It's Bella's turn to be looked at in bewilderment. "Magical Vikings!" She exclaims, "you know, they--Well,  _ anyways _ , those dogs ran into battle in Viking times in the wizarding world. They could tear a grown man apart without breaking a sweat."    
  
"The shop keep gave me a book on them, yeah. I uh...I thought it would be better than something fragile." Lily doesn't say  _ something his father can't kill,  _ because that would horrify her friends beyond words. She knows it was irresponsible of her, but Severus sorely needs protection at home anyhow. And the company, when she can't be around.    
  
"And I'm guessing you won't visit me over Christmas because you're going to try and drag him home with you for the hols? You know he's not gone home a single time, right?" Dorcas asks drily. Ah, yes,  _ that  _ is how this ridiculous conversation started. Dorcas' lame, ritzy Christmas party. She'd gone once in first year, only giving in after Severus had adamantly resolved to stay at Hogwarts. Little did she know then that that would become the norm. The party was droll, full of dull, gray florals, hors d'oeuvre's, pleasantries,  _ what fork should I use?  _ and of course all the tittering and gossip. She much rathered Alice's parties, full of popping colors and flower crowns and  _ let’s sneak up on my Dad and put ice down his shirt!  _ because Alice was just mischievous enough to keep up with her and Sev, though she'd never given Lily's best friend a chance.    
  
"Of course, I do! But he's celebrating Christmas this year if I have to carry him onto the train myself!" Lily resolves, thumping her fist on one of her pillows. Dorcas, Marlene, and Bella snort at the thought of Snape, being dragged along behind Lily by his hair, kicking and screaming, onto the express. Mary and Alice, however, are sharing knowing looks and a mental image of Lily carrying him bridal style or thrown over her shoulder, muttering scathing things at her under his breath.    
  
"If you say so." Mary says, laughing softly. "You're still going Christmas shopping with me, Alice, Frank, and the Prewett's, right?"    
  
"Yeah, of course. Actually..." she trails off, biting her lip. With her plan to finally bring Severus home for the hols was the clause of her not leaving him to Tuney's wrath, as she already knew she'd have to promise him that if he was going to be staying in their guest room. She's been planning this since that night on the astronomy tower. A way to fix things more steadfastly. She eyes her friends carefully. "Would it be okay if Sev came?" He's been making good money from his little (illegal, but that’s only because he's not licensed yet) potions business here at Hogwarts, and while she knows he'll probably make her something terribly valuable and complex potion-wise, they always get each other small things, too.    
  
To her surprise, they both say yes. "I mean, I thought he was a creepy git at first, but after seeing you and him in that snowball fight a couple weeks ago, I can't help but think I just don't know him enough to make a real opinion." Alice says, sounding very honest and contrite. At least half of it is just for show, Lily can tell, but then isn't it usually? Still, she's being an exceptionally good friend, giving Severus a chance. Better late than never.    
  
"And I mean, if you can accept me pining after  _ James Potter  _ out of all the pretentious prats out there, I have absolutely no business judging who you try to tumble with." Mary says baldly, grinning deviously and rolling out of the way of yet another pillow. Lily supposes she does have a point. Of course, she has no idea what the blond sees in him, but she isn't going to fault her for it. Even if Mary, with her pale bouncy blond curls, sparkly blue eyes and fair, smooth skin is  _ leagues  _ past what Potter deserves. She looks like Marilyn Monroe, and James Potter looks like an idiot. It's not always your choice though, who you fall in love with. And she and Mary have, unfortunately, fallen so far as to break world records, really. And head over heels, to boot. Of course, neither boy  _ know  _ about this, too busy chasing their respective prizes--for James it's Lily, for Severus? It's his future, despite most thinking the obvious answer is  _ also  _ Lily. No, his future has proved the obstacle between them more than anything.    
  
"Lily? Earth to Lily,  _ hello _ -o?" Alice waves her hand in front of Lily's face, snapping her out of her thoughts.    
  
"What?"    
  
"We were just asking if you wanted to sneak down to Hogsmeade for butterbeers?" Truth be told, Alice has done this quite a lot. Her cousin is a bartender in the Three Broomsticks, and he's always willing to serve her at midnight despite her not being allowed there by any means.    
  
"Guys."   
  
"What? Potters and co aren't the only one that can have fun!"    
  
"I know, but I'm a prefect, I'm not supposed to--"   
  
"Remus is also a prefect. Come ooon. What are you, chicken?" Bella starts making chicken noises, and everyone joins in until Lily groans and caves.    
  
"Yeah, alright."    
  
"Wait, that dog you got isn't like a crup, is it?" Marlene asks, brow crinkled in worry.   
  
"What's a crup?" Lily asks, at the same time Belladonna says, "No, Norwegian Malamutes aren't crups. And they don't attack muggles."    
  
"Wait, there's a wizarding world dog that attacks muggles?"   
  
"Yeah, they look like jack Russell terriers. Nasty little things, two tails." Alice, rather redundantly, makes a "v" with her hands for emphasis as Lily tugs on her boots.    
  
In a completely different part of the castle, three boys are similarly putting on their boots and scarves, though the girls could never know this.   
  
At least, until Lily (using her new, Sev-Given knowledge of the teachers patrol schedule) Mary, and Alice are slinking through one of the many secret tunnels to Hogsmeade. This one leads directly to the pubs back room--though, unbeknownst to them, it will collapse during the war in less than five years' time, never to be found by a certain set of twins--and Alice knows it like the back of her hand. There's a twin tunnel that intersects with this one and leads down to a trap door under the dungeons, but that path is so creepy she'd only trekked it once. What startles her is when light trickles out from the doorway that leads to that twin tunnel, followed quickly by voices.    
  
"You're fuckin' crazy, you bloody quasi-Gryffindor, what if the caretaker sees us?!" Hisses a light, semi-familiar voice. Lily and her friends freeze. Mary mouths the words  _ quasi-Gryffindor  _ in bewilderment.    
  
"Really, Aubrey, stop whinging. The way back is damn simple, you know." Lily recognizes that voice, eyes widening almost comically.    
  
"They aren't even going to serve us, you know. They'll just get the Headmaster, and then we'll all get in trouble!"    
  
"Where's your  _ ambition  _ Avery? I've been doing this for years. Rosmerta has a soft spot for me, Merlin only knows why." The click of his boots echo on the stone, his steps sounding like a bizarre, waltzing stride to the two girls. Lily recognizes Severus' flashy, elegant striding as any friend would.    
  
"Sev!" Lily hisses, her voice echoing oddly as she pops around the corner, catching Severus and two of his Slytherin friends, his wand out and lit by  _ Lumos _ . He startles, jumping about a mile.   
  
"Lils? What the hell are you doing down here?" He whispers back, brows knit.    
  
"We could ask you the same thing." Mary says, joining Lily with Alice not far behind. The two Slytherins behind Severus are white as sheets, looking about ready to bolt.    
  
"Going for butterbeers, actually." Aubrey splutters.    
  
"We were--huh?" Mary stammers, blinking at them. Severus grins at Lily, a crooked, wicked thing that she hasn't seen in an awfully long time. Severus is an insomniac, a night owl, and she's always delighted by her Sev being so manic and energetic as he is when the sun goes down. He rarely shows his true self when the suns up, not for years and years, and she knows she and his Mum and her Dad are the only ones to witness it, his playful, less than serious personality. It's hidden under masks and occlumency and survival instincts, and she can't get enough of the Severus that would climb the old dogwood behind her house to help her out the window after curfew, her dad turning a blind eye to their antics--he trusts them, trusts Sev, and trusts his daughter, and they snuck out into the summer night to watch the stars and dance as if they were at a Hogwarts Yule Ball, Severus' mother teaching them how to waltz once her husband was passed out on the couch, sneaking out to the park with them. That part of Severus had started to wilt and die under the continued cruelty of his father, the sickening of his mother, and the bullying of the Marauder's. Lily had watched as these things and her own pandering to her friends' expectations had driven a wedge between them, watched as the mischievous light left Severus' black eyes to be replaced with something dull, sad, and serious.   
  
Not now, though. Now he's  _ back _ . Now he takes her hand and spins her around against his chest with a delighted cackle against her ear, watery black eyes sparkling with mirth. "Guess you all are on the same trip as us, huh?" He asks with his forgotten Cokeworth accent, it only shows when he's without sleep, as Lily grins at him, her arm pulled across her chest, their fingers intertwined, his hand on her waist. It's normal, and lovely, and  _ she loves him, she loves him, she loves him.  _   
  
She spins out from under his arm, laughing softly. "Come on, let's go together, then!" She exclaims, always willing to see the good in everyone and everything, even Severus' Slytherin friends, and her own friends stare at them in a perplexed sort of awe as Lily grabs Severus' hands and coaxes him--bullies him, yeah? --into walking beside her, hand in hand. Both sets of friends, Slytherin and Gryffindor, follow behind them hesitantly, muttering in turn about "crazy Gryffindor’s" and "barking mad Slytherins" and it's awkward and tense but not for Lily, no, because  _ he's back, she didn't lose him, he's still her Sev! _   
  
No, the two of them walk in a companionable, lovely kind of silence, sharing secret smiles and meaningful glances, their robes swishing around their ankles.   
Mary examines this new man that seems to look like Severus Snape, with his wonky smile and beaky nose, curls flopping around his sallow, speckled face. He walks with a rhythm to his steps, a sort of graceful swagger that's too subdued and musical to really be a swagger at all. He leans towards Mary's friend and whispers in her ear, a sly smile stretching his too-big lips, saying something that makes Lily throw her head back and laugh, his long, potion stained fingers wrapped around Lily's bicep as he speaks directly into her ear.    
  
"He's so different." Mary murmurs, watching them still, and Alice bumps shoulders with her, looking rather morose.   
  
"From what Lily's said, I don't think he's had much reason at all to be happy like he is. But here? There's no Marauders. No bullies to choke him with soap bubbles and lock him in broom closets." She looks at Mary before averting her gaze. "There's no father looming over him with a belt and a beer bottle."    
  
"She told you?" Mary asks, softly. Lily had confided Severus' home life to her one muzzy day in August, tears in her eyes.  _ He's in hospital again, Mary. I feel so  _ **_useless,_ ** _ I can't even keep him safe. What kind of friend am I?  _ And Alice, well Alice had seen a few of his scars on the quidditch pitch. Lily had tried to teach him, but he was rubbish on a broom. Afraid of heights. He'd had his shirtsleeves rolled up. It was a cigarette burn, and a long, ragged mark twisting around his upper forearm.    
  
"She didn't have much choice; I saw some of the scars." She replies softly, unaware of the Slytherin boys listening intently to their conversation.    
  
"Hey." Avery says, a sneer on his face. It's a cruel, nasty expression. "It's none of your business, is it?" He snaps, because Slytherin's  _ protect their own _ , and these two have no right.   
  
"Leave him well enough alone." Aubrey says, somehow gathering up his courage to not simper his words.   
  
They stare incredulously at the two of them, startled by how protective they were being. Of course, Gryffindor’s can say what they like of Slytherin, they have rules. Snakes stick together.   
  
They all come to a trap door with no ladder, but Alice transfigures a stool out of an old plank of wood stood up against the wall.    
  
"Ladies first," Avery says with a laugh, shoving Severus forward by his shoulder. Severus cuffs him upside the head with a sneer. Lily snorts, climbing up the step stool and popping open the trapdoor. She pulls herself up, and sticks her hand out for Severus to grab, grinning at him. He glares at her but accepts her hand, they grip each other’s forearms and soon he's up and standing. Why Alice couldn't transfigure a proper ladder is beyond him, but he kneels beside her and he and Lily work to get everyone up into the storage room.

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Rosmerta the barmaid is very used to the cleverest (or most foolish) of Hogwarts students using the various tunnels and passageways to sneak into the pub. She doesn't mind, delighted by the odd bit of mischief, and she and her friend Morrison Hindle are always happy enough to cover for the odd student or four. This time, it's six. Oddly enough, it's the only two loners they're used to getting in that are part of the group. Alice and Severus had always come by themselves, and never with each other. Both of them brought two friends along each, too. James Potter and Sirius Black aren't around this time, and while she likes their antics, she has sense enough to understand that they wouldn't get along very well with the three boys in the green ties.   
  
"This is the biggest group of stow aways we've ever had." Rosmerta tells them with a wink as she seats them at a table in the back, away from the prying eyes of their patrons (most of which work at the school, and who would be horrified to see their students so far away from Hogwarts so late at night) and Morrison ruffles his cousins hair as he hands out butter beers.    
  
"Hey, be sure to keep it down, though. The headmasters here tonight." Morrison tells them in a conspiratory tone, looking very much like Alice, with the same sun kissed olive skin and chestnut brown curls. He has a handlebar mustache, though, and his eyes are green instead of amber.    
  
They drink in companionable silence, but it's broken after a moment when Alice's eyes go bright with an idea. "Hey, why don't we six have a name, then?"   
  
"What do you mean?" Severus asks drily, but he knows damn well what she's talking about. They've bonded overrule-breaking and butterbeers, participated in an all-out snowball war, and, well, that makes them friends, doesn't it? Certainly not enemies. The golden trio, the marauders, Dumbledore’s army, what were they, then?   
  
"Oooh, that’s a clever idea." Mary says with an ear-splitting smile. "What should it be?"    
  
"The Sacred Six?" Avery asks, grinning. Mary snorts and Lily stifles a laugh with her hand. Severus thinks about his past life, and how he is, quite technically, two people.   
  
"The Seven of Six?"    
  
"What?" Alice asks, brows crinkling. Mary laughs softly, though, grinning at him.    
  
"I like it, because we've got us here, and then we've got day and night over there, bein' two different people depending on who he's with. So technically there're seven, but there's really only six." She says, punching him lightly on the shoulder. He rubs the spot while mock glaring at her. "And even if that other Severus is only half a person, Lily's got her own little hidden side, so that makes a whole 'nother person if you combine both of 'em."   
  
Severus stares at her for a moment, and then says, "Are you sure you didn't just read my mind?" He asks, both shocked and rather happy someone caught the meaning without knowing about his reincarnation.    
  
" _ And  _ no one will bloody well know what it means, either. Always fun, confusing people."   
  
"I'll drink to that." Severus says with a chuckle. This could be the start of a very profitable alliance, one that could even help in the war. 

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The next day, Severus acts no different than the ones before he snuck out of the castle with the rest of the now dubbed Seven of Six. He still scares the daylights out of first year Gryffindor ’ s and Hufflepuffs with his black eyes, scars, and looming posture. He still spits curses at James Potter and his ilk when they tripped him in the hallways--funny, how even a prank that nearly turned fatal isn't enough to deter their antics. Even when someone's irreparably scarred in the aftermath. And he still ignores just about everyone, keeping to himself and scribbling in his texts. He still has top marks in his year, too. This keeps up for the foreseeable future; winter hols will happen in just four days, now. The Seven of Six have continued to meet for nonsensical little late-night escapades.   
  
"Mr. Snape? If I could speak to you for just a moment?" McGonagall says, touching his arm and startling him out of his furious writing. He's always preferred fountain pens to quills, and he sets his down to look at the Transfiguration teacher properly. She has pursed her lips, watching him over her glasses like she used to at Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter. Or rather like she will in the future, if Harry somehow still comes to exist. "And really, young man. Writing in your textbooks?" She admonishes, looking over his shoulder at the second-hand version of  _ The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 6.  _ It's filled with his spikey, cramped hand. Parchment is too expensive. "And aren't you a fifth year?"   
  
"Improving them, Professor," he states simply, not seeking her approval nor her praise, simply defending his defacement of his own property. "And yes. I've already run out of margins in the seventh-year text, unfortunately." She blinks at him, and then clears her throat when she realizes he won't be elaborating. He's gone back to writing, glancing at her occasionally.   
  
"Well, you've been very thorough in the list of courses you would like to take, Mr. Snape." She says, referring to the lists all fifth years are required to make, so that they can be placed in their chosen classes should their grades and O.W.L.s allow it. "In fact, you've chosen every class we have to offer here at Hogwarts to take over the next two years that you haven't already attended, according to your list. You were really very concise about scheduling, actually. How do you expect to attend all of them, given that even you marked quite a few as overlapping?"   
  
Severus gives her his best innocent smile. "As I have all O's in every subject, for every year I've been at Hogwarts, it would be a shame to waste any potential for more learning." Certainly, he'd not had any trouble in school even before he came back as a thirty-eight-year-old. His grades would only drop when Lily and he broke of their friendship, which, if the last few weeks were any indication, won't happen at all. "I was actually speaking to Albus about considering lending me a time turner?"    
  
She gawps at him for far longer than is befitting someone he feels such strong respect for, but he forgives it in the face of the fact that before Hermione Granger, she'd probably done no such thing. Then Minerva eyes his sixth-year textbook, full of advanced notes and corrections, and purses her lips. "Lend me all your textbooks for a night and allow me to use them and your notes to decide if you're truly capable of handling such a workload." Severus raises his brows at her but acquiesces easily enough. He reaches into his bottomless, black canvas messenger bag and fishes out textbook after textbook. Finally, he thumps down  _ Advanced Potion Making  _ and taps his wand over the stack.    
  
"Reveal your secrets." He demands, causing all of the books to expand, pages filling up until they're fit to be the next J. R. R. Tolkien book. He's been doing this for five years, after all. One does run out of room eventually, and lately he's been busy both saving memories in bottles (just in case, as Occlumency is an art, not a science, and therefore losing a memory is quite possible--copies should always be made when pushing them as far back as he's been) and writing down everything he's discovered in his years as a Potions Master. It's nothing that Granger hadn't also done (aside from the bit about the memories, mind) and makes him feel less ridiculous even as Minerva's eyes widen almost comically. Within the stack are books like  _ Occlumency, the Subtle Art of Barriers, Moste Potente Potions, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, A Guide to Medieval Sorcery, Defensive Magical Theory, Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions, A Compendium of Common Curses and Their Counter-Actions,  _ as well as many other more obscure texts and, of course, the textbooks for  _ every year  _ at Hogwarts, even the ones he hasn't gotten letters for yet. Hermione wasn't the only one prone to over reading, the difference is that Severus wasn't, and isn't, tripping over himself to flaunt it around.    
  
"Mr. Snape, you can't be telling me you wrote all of this!" Minerva exclaims, picking up the second-hand copy of  _ A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration _ , which, along with the charm’s books, has noticeably less added pages, but still a good one or two finger spans worth.    
  
She goes to speak again but must've read his notes regarding permanent transfiguration and the sacrifice involved, therefore it's categorization as grey magic--and how that could be applied to the dark arts, both to reverse inflicted curses on objects and create them. Those are, after all, the only ones really of note enough to make a master of transfiguration speechless, and mainly because of they're the writings of a 5th year and accompanied by spell-theory diagrams in-depth. Sure, enough though they're all in his spidery handwriting. "I....will consider it, Mr. Snape." She concedes, shrinking the lot to a small enough size that she can easily carry the stack.    
  
"That's all I ask, Professor." 

  



	5. V: Introspection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things move forward.
> 
> //A/N: The faceclaim for Severus in this is Ezra Miller as Leon Dupuis with a dash of Adam Driver as Kylo ren. I have no regrets.

Of course, the quickly approaching holidays leave little time for Lily to ask Severus whatever it is she's been working up to. It's alarming, in all honesty. She's been laying it on extra thick; buying him sweets, sneaking out with him at night to sit by the lake, even an impromptu waltz on the astronomy tower, "like old times" she'd said. It's as if she never became drunk on power and popularity, addiction to the charm of Gryffindor and their residents --more prominently, the purebloods without the hierarchy on the surface-- eroded away to nothing by one simple escapade into the Three Broomsticks.   
  
But were Severus to truly look into Lily's head, he would find instead that it was a frequent menagerie of little things, and none had to do with a fixed nose and clean hair--nor with pity wrought from angry red scarring.   
  
No, Lily's new infatuation, and crumbling opinion of James Potter and his house's bittersweet luxuries is entirely due to her best friend, but not because of just a few things.   
  
For how could his apparent new liveliness be attributed to one or two isolated incidents? No, Lily has fallen into a deep, terrifying love in relation to her friends crooked, shy smiles, resplendent, manic grins, and watery black eyes shining with mirth. With the way he whispers dry, sardonic humor into her ear or spins her around (or vice versa, as she is always delighted at how secure in his masculinity Severus is, not afraid to rescind the lead, make them equals) and how he grows so very excited by the prospect of new inventions or books. New life has been breathed into Severus, reviving a boy wilted and rotting by way of cruelty and spite, and how relieved she is to see him revived.   
  
And while Severus has not the faintest clue what has brought Lily back from the brink of her previously crippling addiction to attention and recognition, he is more than elated for it. So, he lets her lay it on, embarrassed and near lost for words by the sweetness of her gestures, despite his Slytherin personality warning him that she most definitely will want something in return. Some small part of him beats back at it, shrieking at him that he should be the one doing all these things for her. He pushes it down into the most cramped, buried metaphorical box his occlumency has to offer, until he forgets it was there in the first place. A foolish thing to do, but something to sooth the riotous, guilty feeling bubbling inside his veins is worth it.   
  
He hadn't expected that want of hers to be _ him staying for the hols _ . It's an old argument, because he can't stand to be near his father for any more time than he has to, doesn't want to be dragged under the thick, viscous black water of his father’s drunken anger, his mother’s waning health, and depression is like a wool blanket always around his shoulders, but when it gets waterlogged is when he feels the effects of it. Lily's like the sun to dry it out, but she can't spend the whole hols with him, and doesn't truly know what she's asking.   
  
The last time he stayed for the hols was once in his previous life, the last time he'd lived, after Lily had broken it off for his awful, angry shout. He'd sat in his Mum's room, wishing she were still alive, and toyed with his father’s revolver. He'd never genuinely wanted to die until that night. That was in sixth year, of course. He'd been scheduled to take the mark in June. Fifth year hasn't even ended yet, and his mother won’t die for another twelve months at the very least, though that thought still makes him nauseous.    
  
Now, that night hasn't happened yet, but the memory is still there, it still eats at him during the holidays. Christmas Eve was the night he almost blew his brains out. How on earth is he supposed to go home for the hols, knowing that? What if he truly can't keep his head on straight? It's not impossible for his father to drag him so far under that he forgets what he's living for, and the prospect terrifies him.    
  
But Lily's still sitting there expecting an answer as Severus twiddles a sugar quill between his restless, thin fingers, worrying his lip as she watches him. He can't bring himself to explain any of these reasons, either. Can't bring himself to weigh her down with his troubles. But then she covers his hand with her own and says, (not for the first time, given the tone of her voice) "Sev?"   
  
He startles out of his melancholy. "Yes? Sorry, I was...well, no matter. What was it you said?" He stammers, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.   
  
She rolls her eyes good naturedly, but he can see an undertone of real concern in the gesture. "I  _ said  _ that you wouldn't be going to Spinner's End. I mean...if you want, that is. Mum and Dad said you could stay in the guest room. And you could--we could visit your Mum when your Dad goes bar hopping, too, if you like."    
  
He stares at her, the neurons of his brain misfiring in an array of sparks-- _ with her?  _ Not to come home just to be left to his parents' misery and wrath (respectively, of course) for all but a few days of the hols? To actually  _ stay with them?  _ For a ridiculous moment Severus' pride corrodes the idea;  _ I couldn't _ _ possibly impose _ , and  _ I don't need your pity, Evans _ , but both of the notions are ridiculous. Instead he finds his head nodding abortively, swallowing convulsively as he stammers out a hurried "Yes, yeah, I-I--Are you sure, Lils?" His face blotchy with the embarrassment tied to such an awkward, blithering response.    
  
"You will?! Oh my god! Mary owes me a galleon. Of course, I'm sure, you silly bastard!" All of the words come out in a jumbled rush as Lily throws her arms around him. He freezes stiffly for a moment, stunned into silence by the contact, before awkwardly returning the embrace. He ends up with his face buried in her shoulder, and that same stupid part of his brain that had rioted at the thought of being given gifts also hisses that he should be taller, should rest his head on top of hers instead of hiding in the crook of her neck and her blazing red hair. He shoves that down too. Her hand is curled in his hair, lank from potions class earlier today--products can only do so much, after all--and they hug for longer than Severus is comfortable with. Still, when she pulls back Severus wants to keep her there in his arms, something warm and safe about being held tugged out from under him and going with it is the quieter satisfaction of keeping  _ her  _ safe. But then, sometimes it’s just as hard to remember as it is to forget that Lily died in that past-future of his. She's so stubborn, fierce and bright--enough to make his eyes water. If Albus Dumbledore is a light in the dark of the war, Lily is a  _ supernova _ .    
  
She's looking at him with something he can't sparse out, and he swallows thickly, his eyes falling lower, to her lips. She pulls a bit closer to him, but he shakes himself, forcing his eyes to meet hers. The moment passes.   
  
She bites her lip and starts a new branch of conversation to distract herself--her eyes must've deceived her. No way Severus had almost kissed her. It's very unlikely--she's still under the impression that he doesn't like her that way, after all. Actually, her parents' approval had hinged on the fact that they think Severus is gay. Funny, she wonders, watching him blush and duck his head. Freddie Nelson is a Nancy, she knows. He doesn't blush about girls, doesn't so much as look in their direction, at least in that sense. Severus does, but it's fair to say he doesn't drool about them like most boys their age.    
  
"Hey, you're still working on that Animagus thing, aren't you?"   
  
"Yeah." He lies, (lies because he isn't still working on it--no, he knows exactly how to do it already) but maybe it’s not a lie at all; an Animagus' form is based on their personality, but it doesn't change once discovered. Technically, Severus will be discovering his again, and this time he won't be a turmoiled teenage boy. Well, not entirely, anyhow. He wonders if he'll still be a black fox. Lily's is a fluffy orange cat, last he checked. Norwegian forest cat, or an especially large kneazle or something. Huge cat, really. He's come to the realization that most Animagus' forms reflect the colorization of their human counterparts, their  _ hair color _ , at the very least. Of course, there are slight variations. McGonagall is black and grey instead of just plain black--Lily had had a goldenrod underbelly in her cat form, and Severus' paws had faded from black into white, like a fox’s black stockings. But mostly, the coloration reflected the caster rather than the animal.   
  
"Great! I think I've almost figured it out, actually." She says, because she's great at transfiguration. Charms may be her main strength, but transfiguration is a close second, and she's always been a genius at it. Severus and she are tied for top of the class in both of those classes, mainly because they've always combined their knowledge instead of fighting to beat one another.    
  
He smiles at her as she yanks out notes and spreads them over their favorite table in the library (on the underside, scratched into it with a penknife, is  _ Our Spot 2.0,  _ a foolish thing they'd done in first year that makes something warm and fuzzy hum in his chest) pointing out the different nuances of the theory of becoming an Animagus and how to apply it. He listens patiently, and nudges her in the right direction until her eyes, which are eau de Nil in the warm light of the library, light up with the fervor of a break through.   
  
It makes him want to squirm that the  _ Marauders  _ of all people figured this out two years before they did. That they managed such an advanced magical feat at thirteen. He lets it go, because they may have one or two great accomplishments, but it’s nothing to he and Lily's slew of them.    
  
He grins at her as she rambles out the complete theory and steps, nodding enthusiastically because her excitement is contagious. The book had had to be snagged from the restricted section. Normally, the book would be out in the open, but with a war on the staff hadn't wanted death eaters to have any more ability to sneak around undetected than they already did. And where were future death eaters most common? In Hogwarts, that's where. McGonagall had even glazed over it in their third-year class.   
  
"Okay, so the part missing from the book  _ has  _ to be about the mandrake leaf! They absorb organic material like crazy and are the first thing someone would use to attune their DNA into a potion--even you said that they're used to home in on certain properties too subtle to be added directly from the source!" Lily leans forward, "We always knew we needed a leaf, but not what the bloody hell for, but  _ now  _ it's pretty clear that it's so the potion is specific to the recipient. Merlin knows why a hair isn't enough, but oh well. We've got almost everything else, right?"   
  
"Yes." Severus replies drily, "Or old Sluggy does, rather, but he won’t mind. He's been trying to petition the potion master’s guild to accept me early, actually, and as such he's gone all squishy on me." He wrinkles his beaky nose at that, hating the way Slughorn "collects" students. He's only interested in him because he survived a werewolf attack, Severus knows.    
  
"Are you kidding, Sev? He's  _ always  _ been squishy on you. What potions professor wouldn't be?!"    
  
Severus sighs, knowing she won't believe Slughorns true temperament. He changes the subject, "Back to the potion, Lils. It'll be a good long time before we actually  _ finish  _ it, and we  _ do not  _ want to muck it up."    
  
"I know, but we can line everything up easily enough, right? I think this'll really come in handy in the war, Sev." She says, almost urgently. He sighs.   
  
"We'd need to be unregistered for that, and getting caught could mean years in Azkaban, Lily."   
  
"In war special commodities are allowed, Sev! I've spoken to McGonagall, even, and she said the Ministry official behind the registrations--he's supporting the order, financially at least--would keep both Auror and Order authorities' registrations secret! We wouldn't be liable to prison time because technically, we would've registered. That way order members who are can spy on the death eaters without being recognized."    
  
He frowns, worrying his lower lip. There is another problem with that: his scars. It's more than likely they'll show up. Last time, the bloody  _ potions stains  _ on his hands had shown up as silver discoloration on the paws. But eventually he bobs his head in a nod.    
  
"Keeping a bloody mandrake leaf in our mouths for a month is going to be a pain. And there won't be thunderstorms anytime soon. It's too cold..." she trails off, looking downtrodden.    
  
It's at this point that Severus vividly remembers a certain thundersnow that happened in 1976, this coming year, in Cokeworth. It was newsworthy, because they weren't near any large enough bodies of water to spark it. It's how they did this last time. It happened in early January. He wracks through his brain for an exact date. It had to have been around the moon cycle, because they didn't actually have to wait that long to take the potion. "We can try it and hope for the best." He offers, as he did last time. She makes a face but nods anyhow.   
  
"Yeah, we can." 

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The last transfiguration class before the hols is as dull as the class always is, in Severus' opinion. But then, _ all  _ classes have gotten dull for him. There's only so much he can get from core classes he's already taken. Though it's quickly becoming apparent that this one is significantly blander the others, as he isn't the only one just barely holding back a groan at each redundant fact recited in McGonagall's lecture. (Usually, it's only redundant to him, and not nearly McGonagall’s fault). She's  _ recapping _ , trying to make sure they don't forget everything from the past five years over a measly few weeks, and Severus sees several students have put their heads down to nap. Having spent the last few days tediously putting together Lily's Christmas present, and at the same time denying himself sleep, he finds it not a bad idea at all. The teacher in him is horrified by the prospect. He tries to refrain, though, because McGonagall has just snapped a student near the front awake with a harsh tap of her wand against the wooden desk, looking livid. She takes five points from her own house. Nonetheless he fidgets slightly, casting his gaze over to Lily who mouths ' _ Are you okay?'  _ No doubt referring to the redness and dark circles beneath his eyes, the mess of his curls and the rumpledness of his clothes.   
  
This potion has a dark element to it, unfortunately, and the only way to complete it is to cast a spell over the base. A spell that requires you to fast and abstain from sleep for five days. Needless to say, he is  _ not  _ fine. He wants to set everything on fire, actually. Dark magic requires real sacrifice, but damned if he'll let a little sleep deprivation prevent him from giving Lily the perfect Christmas present.    
  
He swallows with a bob of his Adams apple that Lily's eyes follow, and nods. The motion makes him dizzy for a moment, and he squeezes his eyes shut against the tilting room. A moment later he tries to focus himself back on the lesson, struggling to keep his eyes open at all. His head feels heavy enough to be full of lead, and, when the weight becomes too much, he finds himself thunking his head down on her shoulder. He's certainly close enough to do so, their chairs are so close together that their knees and shoulders had brushed when they sat down. He feels the rise and fall of Lily's shoulder as she stifles a giggle with her hand.    
  
Absentmindedly, he remembers a moment when he'd seen a remarkably similar but entirely different scene--sixth year transfiguration, almost nearing the end of term, and Lily, sitting two desks in front of him, had laid her head on James Potters shoulder in a similar fashion. He'd wrapped his arm around her shoulder and tossed a triumphant smile to his merry band of idiots.    
  
The warm, welcome weight of Lily's arm around  _ his  _ shoulders shakes him from the bitter memory, and his eyes aren't open to see Lily grin at the adjacent Mary McDonald, who grins back.    
  
Nor does he see the way James Potters face goes an ugly red with jealousy and outrage from two desks behind them.    
  
His awareness fades into something much smoother and calmer, and only the acuteness with which he notices of the movements related to Lily's breathing pattern reassures him that he's awake and won't have to start the potion over. Of coursed he'd never be capable of finding sleep in such a crowded room, and would be mortified if he did, as he tends to wake up screaming.   
  
Still, he's drifting, sat in his chair with his ankles crossed and long legs folded under it, one hand splayed half over his side and half over his abdomen, which is concave from malnourishment and a wicked fast metabolism, while the other hand is wrapped loosely in the fabric of his black school robes, nestled in the crook of his own neck.    
  
Minerva doesn't yell at him for it, but it's a close thing. She chooses Frank Longbottom instead, and he splutters out apologies that make Severus shift slightly, leaning more of his meagre weight into his best friend. He reminds him of Neville, which is only to be expected. He wonders if Neville is alive in his past-future. Eventually McGonagall sighs in a put-upon manner and snaps that class is dismissed. Lily rolls her shoulder as the rest of the students flood out, wary of the wrath of their strict teacher. "Sev." She whispers, trying to prevent Minerva from noticing him sleeping on her and taking points from both of them. Lily for enabling Severus' nap and Severus for taking it to begin with. He breathes in deeply and stretches minutely, legs unfolding and arms tensing, sliding a bit further down into his chair. He didn't truly sleep, and believes the adult term is "resting your eyes."   
  
"It seems our resident genius isn't immune to teenage tendencies after all. I was starting to wonder." Minerva drawls, her tone curt and clipped. She had returned Severus' books the day after he lent them to her, and now she looks at him over her glasses with scrutiny until the rest of the class leaves. Then, she turns on heel and heads towards her desk, but throws over her shoulder, "And Mr. Snape? Your request has been approved by the board of education."   
  
"Really?" Severus says, all of his tiredness and malcontent vanishing for the moment as he sits fully upright, hands splayed on the desk. "Thank you, professor." He says, with perhaps too much gratitude in his tone. The sleep deprivation must really be getting to him.   
  
"You really have Malfoy to thank, Mr. Snape. He vouched for you most adamantly." She says drily. Severus blinks, and remembers that Lucius would have started his career at the ministry two years ago. "Actually, he told me to give you this." Minerva produces a slim, sleek card with absolutely nothing on it. Having seen him reveal the extra pages in his textbooks, she must've caught on, because she winks at him and says, "He said you'd understand, Mr. Snape." He's surprised at her levity in the face of delivering a secret message from  _ Lucius Malfoy  _ to a student. Wonders if she's talked to Albus.    
  
"What was that about?" Lily asks him as they walk down the corridor. She snatches the card from him, holding it up to the light to no avail. "It's blank!" She tells him frustratedly, obviously.    
  
"Yes--" he starts, only to cut off with a wince as he trips over--   
  
Ah. Potter's foot. Should have known.   
  
The man in question sneers down at him beneath his glasses. "Watch where you're going, Snivelly. Nose in the way?" He snipes, kicking him in the ribs for good measure. Severus, who's been kicked in the ribs by a man who outweighs him by a hundred pounds, can't help but think James kicks like a twelve-year-old girl. It hurts anyways, but it doesn't bother him enough to groan about. He stands,  _ accios  _ his bag, which had slid across the floor when he fell, and turns to stare at him with a cocked brow. He hopes absently that Potter hadn't noticed the way he'd listed slightly right as he regained his footing, and curses that stupid gift thrice to hell. And really, the prat had been passive to a plan to  _ murder him _ , and he was still tripping him in hallways? He shoves the anger somewhere else. (That is, after all, why people feared him as a Death Eater. Cold, emotionless,  _ calm _ . Funny reputation for someone with anger issues.)   
  
James is staring at him like a caught fish, mouth gaping. "H-How'd you do that?" He snarls, eventually.    
  
"Do what? Have you lost your wits?" Severus drawls sarcastically, looks around as if to find them, stifling a smile as Lily's angry glare at James is broken by laughter. Apparently, she hadn't seen whatever had James Potter cowed.    
  
"You--You didn't use your wand!" He snaps. "Or  _ words  _ for that matter--you just--just--" he splutters, and Lily doesn't seem phased even as Severus blinks and looks at his bag. Hadn't he?    
  
"Sev's always been good at wandless magic." She says, unblinkingly. He has been, but usually it was small things. At school, he'd hidden it from everyone. Aside from her, obviously. Hearing voices isn't the only thing looked on with wariness and fear in the wizarding world. But it had always required immense focus before. It's been happening with more frequency, now. He thinks about what he needs to do and does it without thinking, without pulling out his wand.    
  
Lily wouldn't exactly judge him; she does it too sometimes, more like he used to but still impressive.    
  
"I guess you're more of a  _ freak _ than I thought, Snivellous." James sneers, causing something to go dark and dangerous in Lily's eyes. Not surprising, given that  _ freak  _ is Tuney's go-to insult.    
  
"Grow up, you insolent prat! I swear, you  _ wonder  _ why I'd rather go out with the giant squid than you! I don't know what Mary sees in you, you  _ disgusting _ \--" she spits, wand out without realizing it, shrill enough that people are starting to stare. Lily's voice is getting angrier, her face redder, with every word. Severus grabs her arm on some base instinct to prevent her from getting into trouble. He's close enough that he can smell the flowery, fruity perfume she wears.    
  
"He's not worth your breath." He reminds her, voice calm and deep. "Come on, we have to sign up to leave for the holidays anyhow." He says, in reference to the fact that their next class is past James, and the signup sheet lies in a classroom behind them a ways.   
  
"Right." She says, her angry expression melting into something childishly excited, remembering that Severus is actually coming  _ home  _ for the Hols. "Oh, Tuney's going to be  _ livid _ ." She says, with something of a smirk on her face as she turns and clasps his hand in hers out of reflex. They only do that during the summer--Lily hadn't wanted to be seen holding his hand, and him vice versa. They're too old for it, now. They're standing closer than they used to, and Severus can't help but feel a small inkling of triumph at the way James' face had gone blotchy and twisted in disgust.    
Lily chatters his ear off the whole way to the typically unused classroom, and he's grateful for the reminder to stay awake. Falling asleep while walking is an achievement he  _ doesn't _ want to be known for.    
  
"Mr. Snape!" Says Slughorn, who must've drawn the short straw in the staff meeting that always happens prior to the holidays. Slughorns Christmas party is coming late this year, on the very last day of school. Which just so happens to be tomorrow. "You're going home this year, then?" He asks, in his typical excited fashion, smiling too widely and gesturing too animatedly. "Oh, but I hope you'll come to the Christmas party this year! Master Belby is oh-so excited to meet you, after I showed him that paper of yours, he was interested indeed!"    
  
Severus blinks at him, trying to think back to which paper, exactly, he was talking about. Ah. Werewolves, most likely. He had tried to tone down his knowledge but making wolfsbane for such a long while had given him more than he'd like to admit. Maybe he still overdid it. The potion wouldn't be invented for another five years, at least, but he had mentioned the premise, which should be circulating by now. Severus is still rather startled that Slughorn is noticing him at all, in the slug club or not Severus has never been his favorite student.    
  
"In fact, he asked me to ensure your attendance." Slughorn says, causing Severus to frown slightly, opening his mouth to reject the offer.   
  
"Of course he will!" Lily says hurriedly upon seeing Severus' intentions. Severus gives her a look that she immediately recognizes as  _ I'm going to talk myself out of this, Lily _ and she panics slightly, because Severus might absolutely despise social gatherings, but he will not ruin his future over that silly of a notion. She slings her arm around his shoulders and blurts out something that he certainly won’t be able to refuse, hardly thinking in the moment, "We're going together, after all!" The sheer delight that dawns on Slughorns face is almost as comical as the strangled noise that escapes Severus.    
  
"Are we?" He hisses, brows raised.    
  
"Of course, silly." She says, a part of herself overjoyed that her big mouth had gotten her into such a situation. The other part is horrified, and kind of scared Severus might hex her hair green in her sleep for such a trick.   
  
"Oh, that is absolutely wonderful! Just wonderful! You know, I always thought you two would be magnificent together." Slughorn says, clasping his thick hands together and smiling jovially at them.   
  
Bringing a date to the Slug club’s Christmas party is quite nearly  _ expected _ , and while Lily didn't use the word her meaning was obvious to both of them.    
  
Severus is caught between being terribly angry that she'd roped him into a social event and overjoyed at the prospect of a date, official or not. They both sign the parchment on the desk, Lily's looping hand and Severus' spidery, cramped scrawl side by side. There are two, one to stay at Hogwarts for the holidays and one to go home. Previously there was just the one to go home, but with the war gaining on them each student needs accounted for. 

****

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"You're going to be late, you daft tit. Stop fussing your clothes and get down there, before she decides she's been stood up!" Avery says, cuffing him on the arm. Severus glares at him, but it loses some of its edge with him fidgeting with his cuff. He's wearing the long black coat Albus bought him, along with the corresponding outfit. Emerald green shirt, fitting black slacks, dress shoes, and a black waistcoat. Sighing, curls slumping forward onto his face, Severus turns to leave.   
  
"Forgetting something?" Aubrey says cheerfully, cowering a bit under Severus' murderous look even as he slides a cravat under Severus' collar for him, fiddling with it until it meets his standards and smiling encouragingly at him. "Go on, then, mate! She'll be dropping her jaw, with how you look."    
  
"In a good way, or a bad way?" Severus asks drily, side eyeing his friend, who just winks and slaps him on the shoulder.    
  
"Eh, you look better than that Potter prat, in any case." Grumbles Mulciber as Severus strides past his bed. Severus pauses in stride, blinking a bit.    
  
"What?" He asks, turning his head slightly to meet Mulciber’s gaze. The much larger boy chuckles gruffly as Severus stares at him.    
  
"Girls like the whole  _ pretty  _ thing once in a while, mate. You may be built like a bird, but you've got other things goin' for you." Severus stares at him incredulously for a few beats before clearing his throat awkwardly and fumbling, making sure he has his wand.    
  
"Walk with Regulus, he's goin'. I think." Aubrey says, giving him a good shove. Severus stumbles a bit, grimacing, and scowls at the boy before slipping out of their dorm room. Regulus, as Aubrey had said, is just coming out of his own year’s dorm, looking just as sullen as Severus at having to attend this thing.    
  
"Who talked you into going?" Regulus asks after a few moments of walking in the same direction in awkward silence.    
  
"Lily. You?"    
  
"Melinda. Ravenclaw, in your year I think?"    
  
"Yeah," Severus says, nodding. "She's ambitious, for one of them."    
  
"Sure is. Pureblood, too."    
  
Severus side eyes him. He's aware that Regulus turned to the light like he did, too late to save himself. He wonders how long it really took for him to stop believing his parents' nonsense. "Right." He murmurs sagely, not willing to oust himself to someone who is, for the moment, loyal to the Dark Lord.    
  
They crest the top of the dungeon’s stairs at the same moment that Lily -- and Melinda? Must be, she looks vaguely familiar -- come around the corner into the corridor. Severus nearly trips over the top step when he sees her, hair twisted into a braided half-up-half-down thing that looks absolutely gorgeous, her red hair running down her back. Her dress is gorgeous as well, white lace over powder blue silk. It's just above her knees, with white stockings that have a woven, knit-like pattern to them. She's wearing flats instead of heels, like the god-awful ones the girl next to her is flaunting, those things look like a trip to the infirmary waiting to happen. Comparing the two is kind of pointless, though Melinda obviously does something for Regulus, at least. Lily is gorgeous, he only registers vaguely that Melinda’s dress is black, and that’s it. Instead, he focusses on not tripping over his own feet as he meets Lily in the corridor.    
  
"Lily! You look--" Severus says, at the very same time that Lily says, "Sev! Wow, you--"    
  
They both cut themselves off, laughing a bit nervously. "Ladies first." Severus says with a slyness that catches him completely off guard. She grins at him, laughing at his "chivalry" and offering her arm to him. They'd decided at ten years old not to adhere to such rot. Lily's always been a stickler for equality, and not just in the war.    
  
"Only if you take my arm instead of me taking yours." She requests, a false primness to her voice and posture. He sniggers as she overdramatically bats her eyelashes at him, shaking his head but taking her arm, nonetheless. "You look absolutely  _ stunning _ , Severus."   
  
"And you look drop dead Gorgeous, Lily flower." He says, leaning in close to say it, like it's a secret rather than the most obvious thing in the world.   
  
Her steps falter, expression taking on a bit of surprise. "What? Did I say something wro--"   
  
"You haven't called me Lily flower since we were kids!" She tells him, suddenly looking very, very happy. Her eyes sparkle wonderfully, and he would do anything to keep that ear-splitting smile on her face.    
  
"We  _ are  _ kids, Lily." Severus remarks, smiling all the same. Lily is tall for a woman, the same height as him, and cuts an impressive figure in the powder blue dress.    
  
"We're  _ teenagers _ , Sev." She says, drily, and tugs him to follow as she heads towards the party. The room Slughorn uses for the party is not his office--in Harry's time at school, the room Slughorn used to host the party in was absent, therefore he used his office. It's assumed Hogwarts simply lost the room, as it tends to do on occasion. This one is not unlike the DADA classroom, long and lined with tall, looming windows. Slughorn has decorated it not unlike the Yule Ball was, with crystallized decorations and icicles.   
  
They're greeted at the door by none other than the man himself. "Oh! Just look at you two, not a hair out of place!" Slughorn says, grinning at them. "Severus, you clean up splendidly, my boy." He shakes both of their hands, which is very odd but not at all unlike their professor.    
  
"So, has Master Belby gotten here yet?" Lily asks as a waiter breezes by, pausing to allow them all to grab a glass of mead.   
  
"Ah, yes, he's right over there. Come on, I'll introduce you." Slughorn ushers them towards a man in deep blue robes with a kind, haggard face and a handlebar mustache to put Gilderoy Lockhart to shame. "Damocles! Again, I'm so awfully glad you could make it." Slughorn says as he vigorously shakes the man’s hand, not unlike he'd just done to his students. Lily and Severus exchange A Look and stifle smiles.    
  
"Horace. I assume this is the talented young man who wrote that paper on werewolves, then?" Damocles asks, smiling knowingly. He tosses them a mischievous wink before turning his full attention back to Slughorn.   
  
"Indeed, indeed. This is young Severus Snape, and Miss Lily Evans." Slughorn realizes he hasn't stopped shaking the man’s hand throughout their rather brief exchange, "Ah! I'm sorry. I'll let you three get to it, then!" He shuffles off to overwhelm another guest with his enthusiasm while the three of them watch with barely contained amusement.    
  
"It's nice to meet you, Master Belby." Lily says in what Severus calls her  _ Slytherin voice _ , a pitch higher and about as friendly as she can sound without breaking her voice. She elbows him in the ribs, somehow managing to make it subtle. It's the same voice people in customer service use, and the one that Slytherins talking to a higher up use.    
  
"It really is, sir. I've read all of your work. Truly marvelous, what you've managed to accomplish." Severus says.    
  
"No need to lay it on so thick, m'boy. You've more than shown your talent. No, what I wanted to talk about is--"    
  
The conversation devolves into some truly fascinating back and forth on potions--the theory, how to improve recipes, and even potential ingredients for the Wolfs Bane potion. He's testing him, Severus knows, and finds himself passing each one with ease. He is a potions master, under the whole  _ fifteen  _ thing, but the memories are shoves back quite far, so it's relieving to know he hasn't lost his edge.    
  
"You know, Severus, I think you would be a worthwhile apprentice to have." Master Belby says, smiling at him.   
  
"I... I’m sorry, sir, but I've been considering spell invention and research." He says, falteringly. Lily spares him an incredulous glance. She hasn't just been standing around, after all, and has also contributed heartily to the conversation, though she had broken off for a bit to speak with a charms master.    
  
"Why not both?" The man asks, nonplussed by his answer.   
  
"Apprenticeships take time, sir." He replies. They do, and a multitude of hours before completion. The man looks him over carefully.   
  
"Well, if it's just between you and I, I think  _ inventing  _ the wolfsbane potion would allow you to bypass all that rot. Even get you an Order of Merlin."    
  
Severus knows he must be staring at him stupidly, but he can't very well help it with what he's suggesting.   
  
"I couldn't--I couldn't  _ possibly  _ take such a--" He stammers, eyes a bit wide. He'd expected perhaps a    
  
  
"You wouldn't be taking  _ anything,  _ m'boy, just sharing."   
  
"But why would you want that? Surely you don't need __ my assistance." He asks, knowing that, indeed, Belby wouldn't need his assistance in such a thing.   
  
"Honestly, it'd be good to have a second opinion." He says, and that  _ is  _ a good point. Damocles is one of the few wizards determined enough to find a cure that he'd risk contact with werewolves. It left him few options, especially when no one else had any more experience in the field than him. No one alive, anyways.    
  
"I... suppose we could collaborate. I'd have to ask Professor Slughorn, though, and he's never much liked me." Severus says, laughing a bit sheepishly.    
  
"He's being modest. Slughorn absolutely adores him." Lily says, giving him a warning glance.    
  
"Actually, young miss...Evans, was it? You're quite a bright mind yourself. It's been in my head for a while to see how far I could push the education system. Why don't you pitch in as well? The more heads we put together, the better a chance we'll have at curing lycanthropy once and for all."   
  
"What would you get out of this, Master Belby...? Aside from, you know, second and third opinions?" Lily asks, suddenly a little weary. Why so eager for young help?    
  
"You two are the top in your year, tied for first place I've heard. There's no harm in making  _ connections,  _ especially with the brightest witch and wizard of a generation. No harm at all." He smiles at them conspiratorially, and, after exchanging a look, they nod. "Oh, that's marvelous! Absolutely marvelous. I'll set things up with your Professor, don't you worry!" He leaves them rather abruptly, with hurried handshakes and an elated smile.   
  
"So, is he lonely or working an ulterior motive?"    
  
"Both, I assume." Severus replies easily, leaning into her a bit.   
  
"Mm. You want to get drinks?" She asks, side eyeing him.   
  
"Yeah.  _ If  _ we can get through the crowd." He murmurs, eyes flitting a bit apprehensively through the now quite thick crowd of people. Lily smirks at him.   
  
"Being a prefect  _ does  _ have its benefits." She says, taking his hand and managing to part the crowd with nothing but smiles and  _ excuse me _ 's, whereas Severus would hardly have been able to make it halfway without something stepping on his feet or spilling their drink on him. Well, if he wasn't shoving his way through, anyways. He does have manners, it’s just the question of whether he wants to use them.    
  
Of course, Lily isn't perfect as most would believe, and apparently not immune to other people’s idiocy. Specifically, Potter's, as his idiocy seems to trump all others. Lily's polite  _ excuse me  _ is less polite when she says it to James, but it doesn't matter one way or another when he  _ spills his drink on her _ . Of all the stupid things to do. Her outraged gasp is almost as satisfying as the look of utter horror on James' face.    
  
"I'm so sorry, Evans! Here, let me just--" he fumbles his handkerchief out of his pocket, not that one square of cloth with get a cups worth of mead off of her front, and reaches forward to dab it. On her  _ chest.  _ She glares at him and slaps his hand away with a disgusted look for the sheer audacity of such a thing.    
  
"Idiot." He mutters scathingly, shrugging his way in between them and pulling out his wand. "Here, Lily, we have cleaning charms for a reason." It's a simple wave of his wand, and it's not like simple nonverbal magic is on the same level as wandless magic. Potter still looks irked by his finesse, nonetheless. At this point he supposes he could cast anything, and Potter would be upset. "Good as new."   
  
"Thanks, but I could've done it myself." She says, raising her brows.    
  
"Mm. Just want to use me as a human shield against the dunderhead behind me? Happy to oblige." He drawls, grinning at her when she laughs. "Honestly, the dress was too pretty to be ruined."    
  
"You're so sweet, Severus." Lily says sarcastically. "I'll get us more drinks;  _ you  _ should go talk to that Auror who wants your attention so badly." She says, gesturing to the man standing in the corner. Severus  _ had  _ noticed not-yet-Mad-eye-Moody's stare, but had resolved to ignore it. He gives her an exasperated look--not without an annoyed huff of breath-- as now that he's made eye contact, he'll  _ have  _ to go over there and talk to him.   
  
"What, scared of Aurors now, Snivellous? Already got the mark, have you?" Potter sneers, and now that he's so far up in his face Severus is quite sure the boy is utterly pissed according to the strong waft of alcohol from his breath, hence him being even more annoying than usual. Severus raises a brow at him and doesn't deign that with an answer. Instead, he says,   
  
"I can only imagine the embarrassment of whatever poor bird you got to say yes to bringing  _ you _ , Potter, but I truly feel sorry for her."   
"No need, Curly. I knew what I signed up for. I was just going to talk to Auror Moody. Wanna come along?" Says Mary, looping an arm around his thin frame. Perhaps she's worried this might end in hexes or broken noses, and while unnecessary he appreciates the gesture nonetheless.   
  
" _ Curly?" _ He asks her lowly as they turn towards the Auror in question.    
  
"Yeah, curly. Y'know.  _ Curls _ . You've gottem when you wash."    
  
"I always wash, thank you very much. Standing over a cauldron for six hours isn't exactly ideal for haircare." He sniffs, faltering as they come within speaking distance.    
  
"Don't worry kid, I just wanted to see you up close." The Auror says gruffly, and even without the mechanical sound he remembers being accompanied with the man zooming his vision in before, you'd have to be blind to miss the way he focuses in on his scars. "Nasty things, werewolf scars." He says this lowly, leaning in close enough that Severus gets a whiff of his breath. Clean of alcohol, at least. He doesn't know how he'd handle a drunk Auror like Moody. Certainly not well. "You didn't get bit, did you?"    
  
"No." Severus deadpans, raising his brows, while Mary stares at him, wide eyed. Only Lily knows how he  _ really  _ got the scars, along with the Marauders. And only his housemates have really heard about the false story. Everyone else just speculates and throws rumors around.    
  
"Course not, course not. If you were, the Ministry would've taken you outta school. Bloody Umbridge. Must be made of tough stuff, making it through something like that with your wits still about you. Say, if you ever want to sign up, just let me know. Can give you a few pointers."    
  
He nods curtly, swallowing. He wonders how much of that was the Auror trying to recruit him, and how much of it was him scoping him out in case they ended up on opposite sides. Probably a bit of both. Mary talks to the man a bit before wandering back over to her  _ date,  _ who he faintly hears indignantly squawking over her being friendly with someone like him. Before he can take his leave, Lily sidles up beside him, drinks in hand. His face lights up at the sight of her. She gives him one, along with a peck on the cheek--maybe that's because Potter had been approaching the Auror as well, and she'd floundered for a way to get him to back off, but it still sends Severus reeling. "I--You-- _ Lily!"  _ He exclaims eventually, equally scandalized and smitten. She grins wickedly at him, causing him to sigh, turn his head, and drain most of his glass to take some of the edge off of his embarrassment.   
  
Turning to the Auror, Lily smiles at him. "Sorry if I interrupted, but I was wondering if I could ask you some questions." She says, as if her date isn’t currently still covering up a red lipstick mark by cupping his cheek, looking a bit dazed. She simply couldn't help herself, he'd looked so happy when she'd handed him his drink, after all. As if she was the only thing in the world that mattered.   
  
"Well I doubt he'll be asking questions anytime soon." Moody says, brows a bit higher at the display. His only thought is something along the lines of how absolutely  _ whipped  _ the boy in front of him is. Looks like he's seen Merlin himself. "What do you want to know?"    
  
"Does the Auror department have any healers on staff?" She asks promptly. "And if not, would such a thing be a possible opportunity in the future?" Ah. Severus remembers Lily mentioning wanting to see if such a thing existed. It doesn't, but it will. She takes a sip of her mead, the very image of confident and professional. Her lipstick stains the glass.    
  
"We don't. Tend to just go to St. Mungo's." He replies easily. Lily refrains from rolling her eyes, as that is not exactly the answer she'd been wanting, nor the one she'd really meant to ask for.   
  
"I meant for on the field." She says, with all the patience that she's so well regarded for. "Most wizards can do the basic healing spells, but more advanced healing magic is oft required on the battlefield, and hardly ever available." Moody eyes her curiously.   
  
"You've got a point, I suppose. Couldn't hurt to suggest it to the higher ups." He murmurs, nodding after a moment. "What was your name again?"   
  
"Lily Evans, sir." Moody bobs his head, gives her a farewell equivalent to  _ I'll look into it _ and wanders off to scare some of the other students. "A bit intimidating for a recruiter, don't you think?"   
  
"It's a good thing. There are students who talk about the war like it’s some one-way ticket to an Order of Merlin First Class," He glances at Potter as he says this, and Lily snorts when he follows his gaze, "And not something horrific. The people Moody manages to scare off? They wouldn't last ten seconds in a real war." Severus shakes his head, sighing a bit.   
  
"When'd you get so wise, Sev?" She asks him, softly. They're a bit close, perhaps  _ too  _ close because all Severus can smell is her perfume, and all he can see is her gorgeous evergreen eyes.    
  
"You've just rubbed off on me, I think." He murmurs, entirely too sappy, entirely uncharacteristic. All he'd have to do is lean forward half an inch and he'd have his first kiss with the woman he's fallen in love with.   
  
"Oh?" She says, absentmindedly, eyes flickering lower than his eyes. She leans forward without thinking, locking their lips in a chaste, sweet kiss. He gasps in surprise, eyes widening before slipping closed. Severus presses back, soft and tentative. Lily tangles her fingers in his hair, tugging on his black curls and pressing in further, aggressive, nipping at his lower lip, and then it's over, over because someone wolf whistles and Severus pulls back, flushed to the quick. His eyes are focused somewhere behind her shoulder, and when she looks, she finds Alice there with her fingers still at her lips.    
  
There were no fireworks, no supernova, but it still made something sparkly and warm and pleasant sizzle under her skin that had nothing to do with the mead. She feels people staring as she smooths Severus' hair out of his face.  _ He's _ staring at her, shell shocked, wide eyed with something like wonder. The eyes on her left burn worse, make her hair stand up on end. "Let's get out of here." She says, and she had wanted Severus to meet the Charms Master from earlier, but now it doesn't seem so important. He nods with a little upward tick to the corner of his mouth, and they're both a bit tipsy, not in the mind to make good, responsible decisions.    
  
He tugs her hand and leads her out of the room through the crowd, and maybe Lily isn't the only one able to part a crowd, because no one steps on his foot or spills their drink on him. Stepping outside leaves them in an empty, quiet corridor. Somehow, he manages to walk her back to her dorm, and they snog on the couch in her common room until his mouth his sore and bruised, warmed by both the fire and their own soft, heated feelings for one another.    
  
He doesn't know what this is yet, but he certainly doesn't want it to end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait, this chapter was grueling to write for some reason, maybe because there arent very many big plot points. Its longer than usual though, so theres that!


	6. VI: "Relationship"

Severus somehow manages to wake up in his common room, instead of his dorm. He doesn't remember walking back to either of them, and his head hurts something fierce. He hopes Mulciber hasn't taken to writing foul words on him in his sleep, as teenagers tend to do to one another. He sighs and stretches a bit, propping himself up on his elbows to find Regulus face down on the floor perhaps ten feet from the door to his dorm, snoring like a bloody whale. At least he isn't the only one; this body certainly hasn't had time to build up an alcohol tolerance.    
  
Slumping back into the cushioned with a soft groan, he spots his coat on the arm of the couch he'd managed to crash on, the one at his feet.   
  
He throws an arm over his eyes and resolves to sleep until everyone else starts waking up.   
  
"Nnn. What the bloody... hell?" Slurs a familiar, younger voice. He assumes it's Regulus, given that that awful snoring has ceased.   
  
The sound of a door clicking open is followed by a yelp and curse from a _ much  _ younger voice. "What the hell, Black?" Snarls a dour looking first year. She flicks a chestnut colored braid over her shoulder.   
  
He supposes everyone already  _ has  _ started waking up, and sighs heavily before sliding off of the couch. He nudges Black with his foot on the way down the hall. "Up, Regulus. Unless you  _ want _ to miss the train." The boy groans and slumps further into the floor. Severus leaves him to tend to himself, shaking his head.    
  
It takes much less time than he might have imagined to finish packing up, change into one of the more casual outfits Albus had afforded him (green button up, black jumper, slacks, boots, long coat) and make his way down to breakfast. They'll eat, leave for the station, get on the train, and head to London. He leaves his coat upstairs and puts wards on his trunk. It's at about this time that he recalls the card from Lucius, and fumbles through the pockets of his school robes, which are still folded neatly on his bed, in search of it.    
  
"Reveal your secrets." He murmurs, tapping the face of it with his wand and watching the card unfold itself into a full sized letter, which reads,    
  
_ Severus, _   
  
_ Attached is two tickets to the Malfoy Family Yule Ball, which I expect you to attend on the 29th of December. Despite the distaste of my parents regarding your blood status and the possibility of your plus one being a muggleborn (a particular red headed one, perhaps?), I convinced them to allow your attendance on the merit of your academic success and mothers line. I expect to meet you in Diagon Alley on the 20th of December in the Leaky Cauldron,  _ **with** _ your plus-one, in order to procure robes befitting the parties dress code for each of you. I will be covering the expenses therein.  _   
  
_ Given the complicated circumstances of the ball, you and your plus one will both be expected to arrive on the evening of the 28th in order to be given a crash course on proper etiquette, and ample time to visit our house library. I will be teaching you, and I hope that we can catch up in the time allotted.  _   
  
_ L. A. Malfoy, _   
_ Heir Apparent of the Old and Noble House of Malfoy _   
_ Ministry Apprentice _   
  
Severus blinks once, twice, and then laughs incredulously. Lucius wants him to bring  _ Lily  _ to a pure blood family’s holiday ball? He decided rather abruptly that he might as well  _ ask  _ her, even if she's likely to say no.    
  
He slips out of the dorm room, sighing when he sees Regulus is still on the floor. Really, blood purity is  _ not  _ everything. Teens are still teens no matter their pedigree. And, of course, because Severus can never have more than a couple of weeks without something either terrible, distracting, or terribly distracting happening, the resident Deputy Headmistress corners him in an almost-empty corridor and says, curtly, kindly, "Mr. Snape? The Headmaster wishes to see you." And then continues walking in the opposite direction without waiting for an answer.    
  
He redirects himself towards the Headmasters office, still nursing a rather terrible headache, and says the password,  _ Lemon Drops,  _ whilst rubbing his eyes.    
  
He gets on the steps and waits impatiently for them to rise. When he finally, after far too many beats, arrives at the man’s desk, he finds a hangover potion and a cup of tea waiting for him. Albus isn't in sight just yet, so he eases himself into the chair in front of the desk and takes both offered drinks, well used to this routine. His consciousness has switched abruptly between teenager and adult, which turns a drink-induced headache into the pinching, heavy sensation that accompanies an oncoming migraine. He knocks back the potion in his hand and washes the awful taste away with the tea.    
  
"Usually I have to explain that they're intended for my guest, at least the first time around." Says Albus with some degree of mirth, stepping out from behind a bookshelf.    
  
"The  _ first time around  _ happened seventeen and a half years ago, by my reckoning." Severus says flatly, setting down the vial and wrapping long fingers around his cup.   
  
"Ah. Yes, of course." Albus murmurs, taking his seat behind the desk. "I just wanted to remind you of what we have planned for you and Mr. Malfoy." He says, coyly.   
  
"How could you  _ possibly _ \--" But Severus cuts himself off with a sigh. "Of course, you knew before I did." He mutters, glaring at the old man with as much spitefulness as he could manage. It falls quite flat, he knows. Albus simply smiles at him.   
  
"The mental block you placed on Lily's mind is quite strong; in fact, were I any less involved in this situation, I would believe her none the wiser at all. To outside influence she seems to be completely ignorant to your plans for spy hood.    
  
"Mm. And you want me to do the same to Malfoy? Albus, mental blocks protect the person in question from  _ outside  _ influence. There is nothing at all to keep them from compromising  _ themselves _ ." Severus drawls. He leans forward, one long leg still crossed over the other--ankle to knee--and hands still gripping his tea. It makes an oddly intimidating picture, one of both superiority and subservience, an  _ I can't stop you, but I know you will fail _ sort of aura. It certainly accurately speaks for Severus' character as a whole. And were he to downcast his gaze rather than staring Albus down with something akin to clinical curiosity (Have you gone senile?!), it would have an entirely different meaning.   
  
"You trust him, don't you?"    
  
Severus smiles bitterly, eyes hard and steely, and looks down into the swirling steam rising from his cup. Albus sees for not the first time a man thirty-eight years in the making, rather than a fifteen-year-old. A war hero. A martyr. "I trust that his heart is in the right place. Albus, I am not a man of  _ trust _ . I am a man of facts and circumstances."   
  
"You don't trust me either, then." Albus says, raising a brow at him. He expects the answer to be  _ no, I trust you, I do _ .    
  
"I don't." Severus says, softly. The man’s eyes harden a bit, losing their twinkle and warmth. "I trust your heart is in the right place." He amends, smiling crookedly.    
  
"But you trust Lily?" Albus jabs, and of course,  _ of course _ .   
  
" **Unconditionally!** _ Always _ ." He barks the first and breathes the second, eyes shuttering closed before reopening. "I would follow her through hell and highwater just for the joy of seeing her smile." Severus says, perhaps too quickly, too harshly. The words jar him physically, tip his head to the side and lean him forward. "That was never questioned, not once."   
  
"And yet you are a man of facts and circumstance." Albus says, as if to mock, to jibe.    
  
"Yes. The fact of the matter is that Lily would die for the cause, for those she loves, for me or for some random civilian without second thought. She would run into a burning building to save those trapped within, and yet she does not waste her efforts needlessly or throw away her life." Severus swallows convulsively and looks away. "I would like to say we have something in common, on that front." He expects Albus to scoff, to sneer, to tell him  _ You are selfish and conceited, how could you ever compare?  _ But instead Albus' face softens and he nods sagely, without question. He believes him. Perhaps, one day, Severus can believe himself as well.    
  
_ Lately? Only those I could not save. _   
  
"So yes, I trust her. And only her. Because she is kind, and selfless, and everything I've ever fallen short of."    
  
"I see." Albus tells him, and then, "I severely misjudged your character, Severus. I suspect that not all of these things emerged in your adulthood, after all."    
  
"Oh, I was a prat." He deadpans. "But yes," he says, more quietly, as he realizes a very predominant pattern, and opens his mouth to repeat the words, only for Albus to do it for him.   
  
"Your heart was always in the right place... Now!" He says, more vigorously, smoothing his hands over his thighs as if to thwart wrinkles that aren't present in his robes, "You should head down to breakfast with the rest of the students." His eyes twinkle merrily, and Severus eyes him suspiciously for it before setting his now empty cup on the edge of the desk next to the vial, turning to leave. "And Severus? I hear the school is quite a-buzz with you and Ms. Evans'  _ display  _ at the party the other night. Congratulations."    
  
He says that as if it's something to celebrate, as if Lily is a prize to be won. He resents the words but also revels in the knowledge that their relationship has become something more than friendship. What, exactly, is yet to be determined. Still, his face has gone hot with the notion that he and Lily's tentative snog has reached so many ears. At least they aren't talking about the make out session in the Gryffindor common room, though he is still fuzzy on when, exactly, he'd left, and if he'd been seen. 

****

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****

Most students stick to their respective tables for breakfast, and Severus has been one of these students since first year. Of course it isn't against any sort of rules to sit at your house table, not on any day that isn't a feast or holiday. So, it's rather delightfully unexpected for him to lean his hand on Frank Longbottom’s shoulder and speaks to him in a soft, cheery voice, and really, he shouldn't be so elated, but switching back to the  _ default channel  _ so to speak (his teenage memories at the front and foremost) leaves him in a good mood, migraine abated and all. He says, "Budge up, if you will?" And, upon Franks perplexed but also kind smile and scooting to the side, sits himself right beside Lily.    
  
"There he is!" Says Mary, grinning broadly.    
  
"Hey Curly, how ’ s the hangover?" Alice jibes, leaning forward. Her chestnut brown curls fall over her forehead.   
  
"I see the nickname has spread." Severus says, dryly. He's getting  _ looks  _ from just about everyone, a green tie amongst a sea of red. Figuratively, for the moment.    
  
"Like the plague!" Mary says in a silly voice, waggling her fingers sinisterly, widening one blue eye more than the other.    
  
"Still, I think you've knocked the senses out of every Gryffindor in a ten-mile radius--aside from us, of course." He snorts at the hyperbole.    
  
"I think you got your tables mixed up, Snivelly." Sneers an unfriendly voice, followed by two hands clapping down roughly on his thin shoulders. His left eye twitches slightly but he's otherwise unmoved.    
  
"Come on, Prongs, just--" Sirius says, less jiving than usual. He sounds tired.   
  
"Just what, Pad? Let this slime ball sit at  _ our  _ table?!" James snaps. In all honesty, he's  _ completely  _ fed up with this weird, unprovocable version of Snape, and it just makes him even angrier after seeing he and Lily snog. "He probably slipped Amortentia into Lily's Pumpkin Juice last night, the greasy git!"    
  
Severus' shoulders, still occupied by James' hands, wrench taught. Yes, he may be a less than good person but to suggest--to even  _ suggest _ that he would compromise Lily's judgement in order to be with her. His breathe shakes in a familiar pattern of anger, and  _ forget hexes _ , he's going to break the bastard’s nose if his hands don't leave his person  _ immediately.  _   
  
Lily isn't the only one perceptive enough to see that Severus is about to figuratively explode--this may just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. He speaks before she can halt him, though. "Honestly, if we are to worry about anyone doing that, it's  _ you _ , Potter. You've been stalking her for five bloody years--since you were  _ eleven _ , and you don't even know her middle name!" Severus says, and his voice is strained, and his face feels oddly wet  _ why is he crying, this is not nearly the worst of anything he's done _ but he can't stand for a second the thought of what James is implying. That he'd  _ rape _ , Merlin above, the very thought. He disentangles himself from the bench and the other boys’ hands to stand and stare him in the face, despite being shorter by a few inches.    
  
"You're the obsessive one! I hear you've known her since you were nine, watched her in the park like some sort of freak--" he bellows. "I bet I know more about her than you ever will!" Severus' face pales. Yes, make fun of the shy, ungainly child with no social experience. That makes you the better man.    
  
"You think you know so much about Lily? What's her favorite color, her favorite song? Does she dance, or sing, or both. You don't know a bloody thing aside from what you've garnered from staring at her whenever you get the chance." He's shaking, and crying, and he  _ doesn't know why _ . What is going on. Potter shouldn't get such a rise out of him anymore.    
  
"You--You--little fucking  _ freak! _ " James' voice is shrill.    
  
"Prongs, come on, what's gotten into you, mate--" Sirius says. Remus looks horrified.    
  
"He shouldn't  _ exist _ , can't you see that?" James says, his face blotchy with anger and jealousy and god knows what else, and the height and the anger both remind Severus a little too much of his father despite the difference in age and weight, and it shakes him a bit, especially when James throws his fist. The words though, they hit it home, bring him back to a place where the door slamming closed doesn't mean  _ honey, I'm home,  _ it means  _ hide under the bed until he passes out _ . It tightens Severus' lungs. The punch is sloppy, uncoordinated, because he's a rich kid whose never in his life had to fight fair for anything, and Severus, a kid equal parts boxer and street rat and poverty stricken youth who's fought men thrice his size and came out little more than worse for wear simply catches his wrist, turns on the boys momentum and lets him go to thump face first into the table.    
  
"Severus..." Lily says, but he just hurriedly wipes his face and takes as long a stride as he can without looking foolish, the hall doors slam behind him. He needs fresh air, time to clear his head. 

****

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****

His breathing harshens even further, and he stumbles down the yard around Hogwarts, his feet carrying him without his mind to tell them where to. Somewhere under the surface he knows he should focus on getting his breath back, but his head feels fit to burst and he's too focused on not screaming. He hasn't the faintest clue what's happening to him, only that it's awful and painful--even dying hadn't hurt this much, and why the hell did he lose it with Potter, anyways?   
  
He stumbles, catching himself bodily against a tree, heaving for breath. A tear drips down his nose, and he watches with blurring vision as it hits the ground. It looks like the entire world is a watercolor gone bad--colors running together into muddy, blurred shapes.    
  
"Oi, are yeh a ‘right over 'ere?" Says a gruff, rumbling voice. Severus swallows convulsively, scrubbing at his eyes and blinking hard to try and get his vision back.    
  
And then all of the color is just  _ gone _ , like some sort of negative bleach has eaten it away, and he can see again but only in monochromes. Severus' blood runs cold, and he must scream, or cry out, or sob, because when he pulls scratched hands away from the tree, they're bloody.    
  
It's  _ green _ .    
  
"What're ye doin' out here, boy? Whas gotten inte ye? ...are yeh alrigh'?" The heels of his palms scuff painfully against his cheeks as his hands go up to tug at his hair. He's  _ dead _ , and this has all been some sick dream, sicker than the first eons long walk through hell, but... is Hagrid dead, then? Hagrid's here, how is Hagrid here... he never once met a single soul but for death in the afterlife.   
  
His feet fumble against the ground, he's numb but for the pain in his hands, and he turns around to look at Hagrid and finds the half-giant with his hand reached out halfheartedly, as if to comfort but falling short of the courage to do it. He swallows again, almost to say  _ Where are we? _ but he  _ knows  _ that, doesn't he? He knows where he is, and it terrifies him.    
  
His knees buckle, and the crash to the ground is painful, yes, but  _ everything  _ hurts, why does it hurt?   
  
He covers his face with his hands and shakes his head. It's all been a dream, none of it's real--he's dead and the dead don't come back, how  _ stupid  _ of him to  **believe** in  _ second chances.  _ He doesn't  _ deserve  _ a second chance.    
  
Someone is shaking him, hands on his shoulders, and were he to look he'd see Hagrid looking a tad terrified and a ton concerned.    
  
But he has his wand, and something, a little, niggling voice in his head, tells him it’s  _ not  _ been a dream, that somethings just gone wrong, that's all. But it sounds so much like the same voice that said that Lily dying was just a bad dream, when he woke up the next day, and the same with his Mum.    
  
He looks up and sees a wraith like figure standing meters away in the trees.    
  
"Severus? How did you get here? I did not bring you." Rumbles the three-tone voice in an ancient language.    
  
He doesn't respond.    
  
"Oh, dear. You haven't really  _ gotten here  _ at all. You can just see through the veil. I wonder what would cause such a thing." Death comes closer, and Hagrid can't see them.   
  
"Go get the headmaster, please." Severus rasps, after a moment. His mind has put the pieces together, but his body hasn't caught up yet, numb with shock.    
  
As Hagrid nods hurriedly--after a moment of indecision, mind you--and heaves himself up to fetch the man, Death makes their way to Severus' spot on his knees and cards skeleton fingers through his thick black hair.    
  
"You know, I've heard of a couple humans who always see through the veil--mediums, your kind call them, though as I said only a couple are  _ real _ ." Death murmurs, tipping Severus' chin up. There's a feeling, that associated with eye contact, though it’s hard to make eye contact with the sockets of a skull, and Death tuts and shakes its head with a crackle of vertebrae. "That Dumbledore should be able to set you straight, but I'm afraid this will be a... reoccurring...problem. it seems you've managed to attach yourself to this realm--subconsciously. Perhaps through dreams."    
  
"How do you--"   
  
"Your eyes." It answers and produces a reflective shard from its thicket of robes, which Severus looks into, and finds his eyes golden. Not auburn, or amber, pure, glimmering golden-yellow. The color swirls as if molten. There's blood on his cheeks from where he'd touched his palms to them.   
  
"What..." he rasps, touching beneath his eye with one hand.    
  
"They will revert to their normal color when Dumbledore fixes your sight."    
  
Albus himself comes into view just then, through the trees with Hagrid on his heels, the half-giant still looking harried.    
  
"Severus? What is it? Hagrid told me--"   
  
"I--" he interrupts, and then realizes it may be useless. How does he explain this without being longwinded? "I can't-- _ see _ . Not--It's--" he groans in frustration and twists his hands into the edge of his jumper.   
  
The wizened wizard has knelt down in the grass to look closely at his eyes, taking in the odd coloration, the black rims around the iris and pupil and the molten gold band in the middle.    
  
"It's like--" his gaze flickers to Hagrid before returning to the headmaster. "It's like when I died." He said, lowly enough that he hopes Hagrid won't hear. Albus blinks surprisedly and then hums as an idea comes to mind.   
  
"You know, there's a man I once knew who claimed he could see through the veil into the beyond. I always dubbed it nonsense, but it may ring more truth now." He tells him, like he's confiding in him a mischievous secret. "I managed to allow him to see color again with a rather nifty spell-- let me see, what was it." Albus mutters to himself for a moment, before he smiles and says, "Ah! Yes, that was it."    
  
It's quite disconcerting to have someone pointing a wand so closely in your face, but he manages not to flinch as the man mutters something that sounds suspiciously like ancient Greek. He winces as that searing pain returns, burning just behind his retinas instead of spreading throughout his whole body, and when he next blinks the world is colorful again, albeit a bit blurry.    
  
"Better now?" Albus asks him, watching Severus' eyes adjust to the light, darkening to their typical black. He blinks at Albus, swallowing convulsively.   
  
"Yes." He tells him curtly, flinching a bit as Albus casts a cleaning charm on his face. "Why did you--oh." He mumbles, remembering his scuffed-up palms, though Albus heals those next.    
  
"I..." his lower jaw tugs to the side a bit in an old, nervous tick as he stares up at Albus. "Thank you, sir."    
  
"Not a problem, my boy, not a problem at all." Albus watches him get to his feet and tells him he had better go get his things, that the train will be leaving soon. It's a surprise, given that Severus can't account for that much time having passed, but he nods curtly and heads off towards the castle. 

****

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****

He'd hoped his fellow students would have either been too distracted by the excitement of going home to think of his and Potter's most recent fight, but that certainly isn't the case. Potter and his gang may be popular, but he's also played pranks on a variety of students, and while they're generally less mild than his own suffering at the prats ’ hands, they aren't any less happy for revenge. One of the most recent was hot sauce in the food at every table but Gryffindor ’ s, and well, that apparently makes people less likely to care how popular you are. Which was much more surprising than anything that's happened today, really. They aren't cheery enough to try to _ touch  _ him, he has far too terrible of a reputation for that, but he gets a couple of whoops and, well, the Prewett twins never did have any sense, so they  _ do  _ touch him, a clap on the shoulder and a high five. "Good on you, mate!"    
  
He's too gob smacked by this whole situation to reply, so he just makes a vague, amiable noise in the back of his throat and continues towards the dungeons. He does flash them a quick smile--an awkward thing, crooked and small, but it's there--because he does have manners, some of the time.    
  
(If he hadn't been so focused on getting as far away from that crowd as possible he would've heard one of them whooping about getting a smile out of him, like it's some great triumph.)   
  
He makes quick work of his things, shrugging into his coat and putting a featherlight charm on his trunk. On the way out, he spots Regulus stumbling out of his own dorm, hair a ruffled mess to rival Potter's and things sticking out of his trunk.    
  
Pedigree isn't everything, he thinks as he takes the steps two at a time. He wonders who he'll sit with--Avery and Aubrey are probably already on the train, and he wonders absently about Mary and Alice.    
  
"Sev!" Exclaims a familiar voice. Lily catches up to him, short of breath, and says, "We can sit together, yeah?"    
  
"Lily, you're a prefect--"    
  
"After I do my rounds? The S-O-S are sitting together, I think. I'll join you guys after I patrol." She tells him as they walk together, still out of breath.   
  
"SoS?" He asks her, brow raised.    
  
"Yeah, you know,  _ Seven of Six," s _ he smiles chipperly at him.   
  
"I--Yeah," he mumbles, overwhelmed by both having his seat picked for him (not that it wouldn't have been that anyhow, because he's fairly sure it would've been) and the rest of his day.    
  
"I, erm, Sev...are you okay? Are...well, uhm, are  _ we  _ okay? Whatever we are, I mean," she says, spluttering a bit. They both pause hesitantly, one step out of sync and with an awkward, heavy pause. He blinks slowly at her.   
  
"I mean. Are we? Alright, that is. I suppose--I--I mean,  _ I  _ want us to be alright? And, if, I s'pose if  _ you  _ want us to be alright, then we're... we're...I mean...I haven't the foggiest, Lils." He finished with a heaved, exasperated breath. He hangs his head a bit, ruffling his hand through the curls at the back of his neck.   
  
"I think..." Lily says, as if thinking a great deal, though there's a glint in her eyes that proposes the exact opposite, the I'm-an-awkward-teen-but-this-is-gonna-be-super-uber-smooth look, which is quite specific but also very recognizable and almost laughable because he's seen that look far too many times in idiot students, and isn't  _ he  _ an idiot student right now? But still, it's a lovely thing in Lily, sly and smirking and sparkling, and he blushes blotchily, looking up at her through his lashes. "Well,  _ I  _ think that if we both wanna be okay, we're A-Okay," she finishes, and presses a chaste but intimate kiss to his lips, and she's so soft, all of her, and he can't help feeling that his lips may be a bit chapped, cause of the cold, and he should  _ really  _ look into something for that, but she giggles, and their breathe is still mingling, and they're the same height so she looks right into his eyes and he smiles shyly at her, crooked and quiet and syrupy and he has always been a right sap for her, hasn't he?    
  
"See you on the train, Sev."    
  
"Lily, wait," he says, quiet, almost painstakingly so.   
  
"Hm?" She tilts her head, turning back to face him    
  
"Does--What does this make us? What...what  _ is  _ this?" He doesn't know what brings him to ask it, he just needs to know, he very much does, and they've still got some things to work about but they're  _ better  _ and it's so great and he just very much needs to put a name to it. His voice is almost pleading, he hasn't the faintest inkling as to  _ why,  _ though. (And weeks, months, maybe even years later, he will finally think back on it and realize it may have been because for a moment he'd been so sure everything was over before it even started).   
  
"Well," she drawls, grinning at him as if he'd just given her the sun, though there's hesitance in the twinkle of her eyes, "I think they call this a "relationship." Y'know, boyfriend, girlfriend. That sort of thing?" Her voice breaks at the end, much less confident, a missed step in their dance. He must catch her with something in his face, though, setting her back on balance with how badly his cheeks ache, when is the last time he smiled this hard?   
  
"I--You, we--" He clears his throat and starts again, "Yeah, yes,  _ please _ , oh, stars--" and speaking of stars, starstruck is certainly how he feels.    
  
Lily's happy expression falters, and she smooths a hand over his cheek. "Sev..." she says, softly, quickly followed by, "Sev, you're crying."   
  
"I--What? Oh, I'm sorry, sorry, I didn't--" He takes a sharp breath, eyes screwing shut as he scrubs them, wiping at his face.    
  
"Don't...apologize. I just...happy tears, yeah?" She mumbles, sounding rather stunned.   
  
"Yeah," he says, but it comes out all weak, wobbly, and pathetic, and he wants to apologize but she doesn't let him, hugging him tight instead.    
  
"Iss okay," she tells him, and is she crying too? It's absurd, cheesy and ridiculous and not at all how real life is supposed to happen, but when they pull back from each other to find Regulus wolf-whistling, grinning like a particularly mischievous cat, he notes that yes, they are both crying, and yes, this is stupidly cliché.    
  
He can't bring himself to care, though.   
  
"You lovebirds are going to miss the train, you know."   
  
"Oh! Right. Fuck." Lily blurts, causing Regulus to blink stunnedly.    
  
"Did she just--"   
  
"Curse? Yes, Regulus, and if you want to keep your tongue free from the roof of your mouth, I suggest you shut the fuck up." Severus says, dryly.    
  
"Duly noted."


	7. VII: Cokeworth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus and Lily settle themselves in at the Evans' house, and Severus finally meets the infamous Vernon Dursely.

The train ride had been more eventful than usual, but it wasn't anything to write home about. He and Lily had piled into a compartment with Mary, Frank, Alice, and Aubrey, while Avery had broken off to sit with the fourth year Slytherin boy he'd taken a fancy to. Frank had seemed unsettled by the prospect of sitting next to Aubrey, but they'd quickly warmed up to one another when Aubrey enthusiastically introduce him to muggle card games. He'd asked Lily about Lucius' ball, and, shockingly, she had agreed. If only to see the Malfoys collection of books on charms, but still. Of course, the conversation had led to a variety of teasing and laughing from their friends. The comfortable, companionable atmosphere had thrown Severus off, though. 

  
There were reasons he hadn't had _friends_ before, sans Lily. Aubrey and Avery were acquaintances, more than anything, just as unsociable as he was. They kept to themselves aside from the boxing or the once in a blue moon study session, and while that made them comfortable with each other, enough so to tease and rough house, it hadn't truly given them _friendship_. They knew almost nothing about one another, never wrote over break, and certainly never expressed their fears and hopes and dreams to one another as he and Lily have. And the reasons were just that: he could associate with someone, could rough house (only with strict rules, and _never_ without someone else prompting it) or snark back and forth, but he struggled to divulge things about himself, to let his guard down at all. That stilted things, easily.  
  
Now, he sits wedged between Lily and the car door, because Lily's trunk easily fit in the boot of the Evans' car, but _two_ trunks had presented a problem that ended with his trunk in one of the seats in the back, with Lily and he beside it. _Technically_ the back can seat three, but the middle seat is as ridiculously small as it is in most cars, and while it had been spacious when they were eleven it quickly became cramped. So, that's why he's nestled comfortably in the corner created by the door and the seat, slightly facing inwards, with Lily sprawled out beside him in a rather silly pose. Her head is on his shoulder, one of her legs is tucked up into the seat, half on his lap and the foot of the other (clad in fire engine red converse) is propped up on the center console between her parents' seats in the front. Her fluff ball of a cat is curled up in her lap. She snores, though this isn't anything new, and Severus has taken to looking out the window.  
  
He realizes, at some point during this lull, that all of his friends in the past were his friends because they could see through the cracks in his walls. Not that _all_ is a particularly large number. Minerva, Lily, Lucius...Albus, perhaps, though in a looser sense.   
  
This time, he'll have to work harder to trust those around him.  
  
Sometime during his musings, his eyes fall shut, head nodding forward slightly, and when he opens them he's on a floor of yellow-stained kitchen tiles, dim grey-blue light flooding through dingy windows. The wallpaper's peeling and the smell of mothballs and mildew cover the faint, stagnant stench of alcohol and cigarette smoke that sticks to everything here. There's a pool of blood on the floor, and he knows it's blood, somehow, some way, and the thick, coagulated substance squelches under his hole-riddled, faded sneakers. It's far from red--some mild aquatic blue-green, shimmering with silver flakes. Wailing, distant and garbled, like from the bottom of a water-filled well meets his ears. Shattered glass, a gargling, blood-muddled scream. He clamps his hands over his ears and screws his eyes shut until they hurt, colors bursting behind his eyelids at the pressure, and he doesn't feel his mouth open but he recognizes the voice that wails in anguish--his, his, how many times has he made that sound? Twice, thrice? The sound is swallowed, silenced abruptly until he can hear nothing but his own frantically beating heart and heaving, stuttering lungs.  
  
He wrenches his eyes open at the sound of a snapping twig, lungs twisted into knots, and when he opens his eyes he sees ramshackle, dilapidated houses and gritty, cracked sidewalk through the window of the car. His head feels like it's full of cool water, and he swallows thickly, blinking a couple of times to make sure he's not still dreaming. He has to wait until his lungs can expand, but he makes sure that the breath he takes isn't the heaving, choking thing he wants it to be. It's odd, the slow, easy silence of the car and Lily's heavy, rolling snores the only thing breaking it to begin with, so much different to that suffocating lack of stimulation. He flexes numb fingers and his expression twists at the pins and needles that immediately eat their way to the surface of his skin. Lily's mother glances into the rearview mirror and blinks when she sees him awake. He draws in a deep, slow breath and stretches with what little room he has. He's glad he didn't scream.  
  
"You don't need anything from your house, do you?" Asks Mrs. Evans, who slows the car down slightly, twisting to look back at him. She has more of Petunia's bad traits in her than she'd like to admit, and he knows she also dislikes him more than she'll _ever_ admit for his poverty and the "bad traits" he's let her daughter pick up. Nonetheless, he shakes his head curtly.   
  
"No, ma'am," he says, quiet but respectful.   
  
"Good, then. That father of yours..." she trails off shaking her head, obviously biting back something derogatory. He returns his gaze to the window, uncaring of what Rosamund Evans has or hasn't come up with to say about his father. All of them would be bad things, and all of them he would agree with. Lily stretches beside him with a yawn, nuzzling his shoulder, while her father speaks up. Hastur prrts affectionately, rubbing his head against Severus' hand. The half-kneazle hasn't decided him untrustworthy, at least.  
  
"You'll be taking the room by Lily's, in the attic. I'd get settled in quickly..."  
  
"I'm guessing Petunia talked you into letting Dursley stay?" Lily says, a note of disgust in her voice. Her stub nose wrinkles up at the mention of the man. Her mother grips the steering wheel tighter.  
  
"Yes," Mr. Evans says, sounding tired. "We're putting him in the room on the first floor, less chance of him overhearing any magic talk that way."  
  
Lily barks a laugh. "You mean the one that used to be a closet? That dinky little thing's hardly big enough for a bed and a nightstand!" Usually, Lily isn't capable of cruel emotions. Anger or frustration, yes, but spite isn't really within her reach. That is, until she met Vernon Dursley, who not only expects her sister to drop out of art school but also expects her to be a doting housewife for the rest of her life. Obviously, he had rankled Lily from the start, given that she's a determined equalitarian, but add to it the fact that he expects _her_ to be a housewife for no other reason than that he may eventually be her brother-in-law, and you have a recipe for disaster.   
  
"It'd be best to get your things up there and put away as soon as we get there, otherwise Petunia'll make you switch with him," Lily's father tells him, trying to sound reassuring.   
  
"Thank you, sir," Severus tells him, quiet but genuinely thankful.   
  
"Always so polite, Severus, but really, how many times do I have to ask you to call me Everet?" The man asks, turning to smile gently at Severus.   
  
"At least once more?" he replies with a small, wry smile. Everet chuckles, shaking his head and returning his eyes to the windshield. Lily's parents are young, having had Petunia when they were in their early twenties, and Lily just two years later. Her father's an architect, while her mother works as a preschool teacher. Mrs. Evans is an especially kind woman, but she does have some hang-ups. Her daughter being so close to the weird boy from the bad side of town is one she has yet to get over. Severus doesn't resent her for it, though he had hoped she would warm up to him eventually.  
  
Lily has squirmed into a more normal sitting position, worrying her lip absent-mindedly, stroking her hand down Hastur's back.   
  
He wonders what has her nervous.  
  
***  
  
Soon, the Evans' house comes into view, and he finds himself slinking out of the car with Lily on his heels, her arms full of cat.   
  
Hastur, unlike some cats, doesn't mind (or even, perhaps, prefers) being held like a baby, and he paws at Lily's face with a mew.   
  
Severus rounds the car to get his trunk while Lily speaks with her parents in hushed tones. She looks far too excited to be up to anything good, and he watches her nod enthusiastically and bound up the porch steps, slipping into the house. Mr. Evans starts for the boot of the car only for Severus to shake his head.  
  
"I'll get it," he reassures him, opening the boot and hefting Lily's sticker addled trunk in his free hand. He sets one of them down and thunks the door closed.  
  
Everet holds the door for him, and when he gets inside he sets them down in the threshold for a moment to get rid of his shoes. There's a stairwell right inside the door, with a little storage thing built into it. A place to hang coats, a cubbie for shoes, that sort of thing.   
  
Severus unlaces his boots and sets them next to Lily's sneakers, putting his coat and Slytherin scarf on the hanger. "Is Tuney not home from uni yet?" He asks, not seeing any of her things. It's funny the things you notice when they're missing, like a set of keys or a certain kind of shoes.   
  
"She's picking Vernon up from the airport. His family went to the states for a couple of weeks," says Mrs. Evans, who gives him a fragile half-smile. Her eyes are like steel. He nods, clears his throat awkwardly after a moment, smoothing invisible lint from his slacks.   
  
"I--Well, er, I'll just go get--"   
  
"Sev!" Lily's voice rings through the house from somewhere further in.  
  
"What?" He hollers back, a laugh in his deep voice. Mrs. Evans wrinkles her nose at their uppityness. Severus, by all accounts, is a quiet, solemn boy. At least, when he isn't with Lily. Candles can be quiet too until you throw some gun powder into the flame. It's just that in this case, Lily's the gunpowder, and Severus is the unassuming candle.  
  
A laugh, quickly followed by "Backyard!" He scoffs despite the fond smile on his pallid face as he picks up his boots, toeing into them only when he's reached the back door. He swings the door open and finds Lily standing on the back porch, which was once composed of dull grey wood.   
  
Severus remembers quite vividly the day Lily dragged him to her house and they spent the day painting it every color of the rainbow with the help of Everet and Tuney. It was the only time he and Petunia had been in close proximity without insults and mayhem, mainly because she couldn't begrudge his handiwork. Even if she had scoffed in disbelief at first, due to the way his hand's tremor when they aren't in use.   
  
She grins at him, toes curling against the colored wood, which has faded with age, feet clad in Gryffindor-colored socks. Then she turns her gaze out into the moderate, fenced-in yard, and Severus stares for a long moment before following her gaze.   
  
There, sitting patiently in the snow by the old red maple looming over Lily's back yard is a huge, fluffy black dog wearing a ridiculous red ribbon tied into a neat bow. The dogs' ears perk up when he looks at it, and he jumps slightly as it barks loudly. A thick, bushy black tail wags back and forth.   
  
"Happy Christmas, Sev," Lily says, grinning broadly at him. There's hesitance in her evergreen eyes though, catching him off guard. Something in her tone and her eyes makes him refrain from voicing any protests he may have.   
  
"Lily..." he groans, soft and fond and _utterly_ exasperated, but there's something fragile and begrudgingly appreciative in there too. He glances at her a few times, and then back at the dog until Lily smiles encouragingly at him. He stalls guiltily for a moment. "How will I ever explain this to my parents?"  
  
"It's not just any old dog, Sev. Your Da won't be able to hurt it, I promise," she says, pausing for a moment before leaning over and wrapping her arm around his waist. " _And_ I'll get you the food for him. I can bring it over when he's at The Dutchess, yeah?" Severus' hand hesitantly comes to settle itself on her shoulder, and he nods curtly, still looking a bit tense and fidgety. The Dutchess is where most of the men who work at the old glass mold factory go-to for a drink. His father religiously follows _that_ tradition. "Well, go on. Introduce yourself!" She says, playfully nudging him forward. He chuckles reluctantly, and, after a brief moment of consideration, steps off the porch.   
  
"Lily!" Comes her fathers' voice from somewhere past the back door into the house.  
  
"Yeah, da?" She calls back, still grinning like an idiot.   
  
"Petunia's about twenty minutes away," he says, poking his head out the door, "need to get a move on, lass."  
  
"Damn! Alright..." she looks back and, to her delighted surprise, she does so just in time to see the dog tackle Severus into the snow-covered ground, licking his face as Severus makes a strangled _oomph_ sound. Her father bellows a loud, rough laugh, and she can't help the whoop she lets out, clapping her hands together in delight.  
  
"Sev! We need to get you settled in before Tuney and Vernon get here," she calls, watching him glare indignantly at the canine, who stares back placidly. Severus sneers, watching it stand and get off of him, but, as he turns towards the house he gives it a good pat on the head, ruffling pitch-black hair as he sets his own to rights. A hesitant, small smile makes its way onto his face as he brushes powdery snow off of his shoulders.  
  
He swallows convulsively as he's about to pass her to go into the house, and says, quietly, "Thank you, Lils," followed by a swift kiss on the cheek. It's fumbling, he nearly trips over his own feet, and the kiss falls slightly higher than it should. Lily's radiant grin is worth his own rising mortification, of course. She glances at the windows set into the back of the house nervously--she's fairly certain the only reason her parents (her _mum_ , at least, and she loves her mother to bits but it hurts that she distrusts Severus for little more than what side of the railroad tracks his house is on) let Severus stay is that they think he's gay. She doesn't know what'll happen if they find out they've become more than just best friends.  
  
Still, no-ones watching, and so she leans forward and catches Severus' chin in her hand, pressing their mouths together in a deeper kiss. It's not particularly graceful either. Teeth clack together unpleasantly and their noses bump together before they find a good angle. All in all, it's abundantly clear that neither of them has had very much practice. It doesn't last very long (or rather, not as long as they'd like), and Severus lets out a harsh, slow breath to steady himself and get blood flowing away from certain places.   
  
Lily follows him inside and they drag their trunks up the steps, the slightly worn wooden stairs creaking laboriously under their combined weight. The Evans' house is narrow, two stories tall (plus an attic and a cellar), and the stairs of the cozy little foyer turns around into a hallway in the attic, which splits the floor into two moderate rooms. Lily's room, on the right, and the guest room on the left.   
  
Severus slips through the left door, and Lily through the right, looking around and marvelling a little at the amount of room he's been afforded. A full-sized bed sits tucked against the innermost wall (the one that's shared with the hallway) and while the roof slopes down sharply, there's plenty enough clearance that he won't worry about hitting his head. A corner couch is tucked against the left wall, along with the bookshelves covering the lower outermost wall, and a wardrobe is tucked between the couch and the bookshelves. There's a window outlooking the back yard, too. Done taking inventory, Severus heaves his second-hand trunk onto the bed and opens it, making a mental note to find a way to stop one of the clasps from shrieking its protest, rusty and old as it is. He doesn't have many belongings, so it takes little work to get everything in its rightful place. He neatly folds or hangs his clothes, all of which are either his second (or third) hand school robes, or the things Albus got him. He pauses to fold his thread-bare, hole-ridden sweater and too-long, grey flannel sleep pants.  
  
Despite the shambling state of their house in general, his father is always very strict about how tidy Severus' room is, if not because he cares then because he wants a reason to shout at him--or worse. His father may not be military, but his _grandfather_ was, and Tobias seems set on raising him like he himself'd been raised.   
  
When he isn't too drunk to make words in the first place, that is.   
  
His books come next, and he takes his time setting a few out of his bottomless bag on the couch and the bed, to make things look a bit more lived in, as well as tossing one of his cardigans over the arm of the couch. The less Tuney can whinge about the better, in his not so humble opinion, and if it looks like he's already been here for a day she'll have _far_ less footing in regards to making him and Dursley switch. He's never met him, but Lily had had some very colorful, creative things to say on the matter of Vernon Dursley. Needless to say, he's ready to be as petty as need be to keep Lily and Vernon sleeping as far away from one another as possible, not to mention that Lily and Severus won't have as much opportunity to talk about magic if Vernon's up here.   
  
They've both got a mandrake leaf tucked in their cheeks, and they've taken to speculating what their animagi'll be. Lily's grown up a bit faster than last time, somehow, and Severus has _obviously_ changed a lot. Apparently, an animagus is much like a wand in that the bigger the personality, the bigger the animal. Just like how bigger personalities lead to longer wands. He's starting to think this whole thing might turn out to be a moot endeavor, given that the upgrade from a cat is a _big cat_ , as in lion or tiger. And those aren't exactly spy worthy. Nor are wolves, or whatever the hell the next step up from a fox is.   
  
He tucks his potions things carefully into the wardrobe, followed by a quick, hesitant glance at his toiletries (soap, the hair product Albus got him, shampoo and conditioner, tampons, razor, comb, etc). A moment of deliberation leads to him closing his trunk and shunting it beneath the bed, thinking it better to put those away later, as they will probably end up staying in the second-floor bathroom for the duration of his stay.   
  
"Hey, Sev, I think I left my book in the car, will you fetch it for me if you're done unpacking?" Lily asks as he steps out into the hallway. Her door's ajar, and she's still folding her clothes. The walls of Lily's room are plastered with posters, though a gorgeous watercolor painting is hung on one wall--one of Petunia's. A quilt is folded at the foot of the bed--it's an ugly, mix-matched thing her Nan made for her a few years ago.   
  
"Which book?"   
  
"The one in the backseat of the car?" She replies, a teasing lilt to her tone. He chuckles softly and trudges down the stairs.  
  
The air is bracing, and he wishes he was wearing a thicker jumper, rubbing his hands against his thin arms as he gets outside. The car's unlocked, and the book turns out to be _A Compendium of Healing Spells, v. IV._ A modest, dark brown car parks just in front of the Evans', wheels crunching at the thin blanket of snow and ice on the street. Severus hears Tuney's nasal trill before she's opened the door. It's too cold for him to waste time watching them get out, even if it would give him an early read on Dursley, so he turns and heads inside, hands shoved deep into his pockets.   
  
"You didn't tell me you had a brother," remarks a deep voice that has something thick and ungainly about it.   
  
"I _don't_ ," Petunia says, shrill and nasally as always. She sounds particularly annoyed, and he turns from where he'd just set his boots in the cubbie to find a startlingly large man standing in the doorway. He has a mustache that looks very distinctly like a large, furry caterpillar, and short, brown hair. The more striking thing about him is how overweight he is. Severus would be hard-pressed to call him anything less than a Walrus, given his lack of neck and the distinct shape of his face.   
  
"Tuney," he drawls, his deep voice somewhere between courteous and venomous.   
  
"What are you doing _here,_ freak?" Says Tuney, scowling something fierce. Severus is looking at her with all the abject terror one would direct at a declawed kitten, raising his brows at her.   
  
"Lily invited me for the holiday," he says, just as Lily's parents come into the foyer. Lily bounces down the stairs a moment later, though her expression sours considerably when she sees Vernon. There's a flicker of pain in her eyes when she glances at Petunia, but she covers it up well.  
  
"Vernon!" Exclaims Lily's mother, opening her arms for a hug. Mrs. Evans has a plump, filled out figure similar to Lily's, and she's tall, as well. Dursley gives her one, and the affection there is palpable. Of course Lily's mum would like Dursley, he's a "proper gentleman" if Lily's description is anything to go by, and said description was said in a voice heavily laden with disgust. He and Lily have never entertained that sort of nonsense. She wants to do something with her life, and he'd be a fool to try to stop her (and a git to want to in the first place).   
  
"Oh, how were the states, dearie?"   
  
"Fine, though things could've been better. The company--" Severus tunes out at this point, not caring about whatever boring factory work the man is obviously involved in. Lily said something about heavy machinery. Construction work? He isn't sure and doesn't care to stay and find out.  
  
Fortunately, Lily puts a hand on his shoulder and leads him into the sitting room, where the both settle Indian style on the thick off-white carpet, facing one another. The dog has found its way inside, and trots over to him happily, nosing at his hair and sniffing curiously. Severus, without much thought, takes to running his fingers through the soft double-layer of his coat, which earns him a happy sounding whine and a lap full of dog. Well, it's really just the beast laying down with its _head_ in his lap, given how enormous it is. He unties the big red ribbon and sets it carefully aside.   
  
"So, what're you gonna name him?" Lily says, taking a moment to stretch back and stroke her hand down the back of Pluto, a stray tabby cat the Evans' took in when she was ten or so. Severus hums thoughtfully, combing his fingers through the thick fur at the nape of the dog's neck.   
  
"You won't just let me name him dog, will you?" He says, knowing the answer already even as Lily groans out a long, disgusted, "Seeev." He chuckles, holding his hands up in mock surrender.  
  
"Alright, alright!" He says, laughing. "Hm..." he tips his head, thinking rather hard. A specific name comes to mind, one he knows only because he, in a fit of pique given that his Da made him go to church every Sunday, took out a book on Demonology at the library. Of course, he and Lily are pagan now, but _demonic_ is the first word that comes to mind when he thinks _big, black dog_ even though it most probably should probably be--ah. That, yeah. Well, that is certainly less bizarre than _Faust_ and less likely to turn heads.  
  
"Grim?" He says, getting a feel for the name and how it sounds.   
  
"Grim. Hm. I like it," Lily allows, smiling widely at him. Then, she catches on, and smacks him upside the head, watching him cackle loudly at the abuse. "Really, that's just as bad as dog!"   
  
"Well that's quite unfortunate...given that I'm _definitely_ sticking with it," he tells her with a shit-eating grin. She sighs heavily at his antics despite her own smile struggling to the surface. After a moment she turns back to the dog, who stares up at her with wide, curious eyes.  
  
"Do you like your new name, Grim?" Lily asks, scratching right below the ear and grinning when Grim barks in reply, tail fwumping heavily against the floor. "Awww. Who's a good boy?" Lily coos, smoothing her hand through Grim's thick coat.   
  
"You three having fun?" Everet asks, leaning on the doorframe, watching them with his arms folded across his broad chest. Severus wonders how long he's been there, but decides it doesn't matter after a moment of consideration. They hadn't said anything that would tip him off about a relationship, but there's a knowing glint in his eye. He smiles at Lily's _Of course, da._ "Hey, Severus. Mind stepping out for a chat?" He nods quietly and pushes himself up (only after a moment of less than graceful wiggling to get out from under Grim), and takes after him at a moderate pace.   
  
Severus isn't worried about Lily's fathers' reaction. He's always been mild-mannered and pleasant to associate with, after all.   
  
"So," Everet says after they've stepped into the man's study and closed the door behind them. A precisely made model sits on a card table off to the side, displaying what looks like an entire block. The main focus, he supposes, is on the long, stately looking building on one side of the street. A library, perhaps. Severus' pitch eyes wander the room for a moment, taking in the dark, handsome wood making up the furniture and the floor, the paintings (probably Petunia's?) and degrees hanging on one of the walls, and the oriental rug splayed out on the floor. For some reason, he isn't nearly so sure as he was a moment ago. Something about how loud the click of the door shutting was, and the small, cluttered space highlights just how ridiculously tall and broad Mr. Evans is--he is intimidating, it's just hard to remember that given his personality. "You and Lily."   
  
"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir," Severus says, straightening up a bit more if that's even possible. He imagines he looks rather tense and certainly _feels_ tense. The mannerisms ingrained into him by his father have wormed their way under his skin, and he has, somehow, found himself standing before Mr. Evans like he stands before his own father: straight back, head down, eyes on the floor, hands folded neatly in front of him. This has happened before, of course, but he'd managed to shake the habit early into his teaching career. Now, the muscle memory is still freshly ingrained into him, and he doesn't see the look of surprise on Mr. Evans' face with his eyes on his socked feet. He _knows_ Mr. Evans won't be angry, or rather he knew it a moment ago! Now, he finds himself tensing, muscles rigid in preparation for a blow that he knows won't come. His thoughts, his knowledge of what is about to happen, aren't nearly strong enough to fight his instincts and his own body.   
  
Mr. Evans, whom, unknown to Severus, has been told by Lily about some of Severus' poor treatment at his fathers' hands, and who has seen this happen before--in fact, it had been a real struggle in the beginning to get Severus to look at him at all. A nine-year-old should not have been so terrified of men in general. "I'm not angry with you, Severus," he tells him, gently. "It was a bit of a surprise, sure, but if it has to be anyone I'm glad it's you making my little girl happy."   
  
Severus swallows thickly, prying his eyes open from where he'd flinched, hard, and finds himself staring up into a soft, compassionate expression. If it had been pity, he might've been less inclined to relax as he did.   
  
"How did you figure it out?" He asks, quiet and flat and just a bit too calm. His shields knit tighter on some baser instinct he can't name.  
  
"You two had been growing apart. It was pretty easy to see something had happened when she invited you for the hols and you accepted. And you seem even closer than you were before." He shrugs. "It's the obvious leap, given I can't think of many other ways for you two to get any closer than you've been without falling in love."  
  
Severus makes an involuntary, strangled noise in the back of his throat. He's always known Mr. Evans was a bleeding heart, it's just a part of his personality, but they haven't even mentioned that particular four-letter word. Severus loves Lily with his _everything_ , of course, loved her with his dying breath and beyond, _literally_ , but Lily hasn't--she--does she? Does she _love him_? He hadn't really considered it. It's obvious, in hindsight, but the fact that she reciprocated his feelings doesn't mean love just yet, not always...some subconscious part of him had dubbed it infatuation, just like she'd had with Potter, in the beginning, though he had been certain that it could turn into more over time, was happy to be patient. And, he was also quite happy to let her be if things _didn't_ work out, so long as they were still friends. It would break his heart, yes, but he would never take such a thing from her--he just wants her _happy_ , and _alive_. "She...she loves me, sir?" Severus manages, after a moment, because who is a better judge of character than her father, who has a great relationship with her, and who has raised her?  
  
Everet chuckles, "Yes, Severus, she loves you very much. Now that that's settled, let's--"  
  
"Why does that FREAK get the upstairs bedroom?!" The shrill note penetrates the door to the study with ease, and Mr. Evans grimaces. "It's not like _he_ needs the space, he's a _whelp_!"  
  
"Petunia!" Lily's mother's stern voice floods into the room as her husband opens the door to his study.   
  
"It's because the farther apart Lily and Vernon are, the less likely the house is to burn down, petal," says Everet, raising a brow at his eldest, who looks about ready to stomp her foot like a child, standing close to her mother in the doorway to the kitchen. Lily steps out into the hallway, glancing between a purple-faced Vernon standing by the door to the smaller guest room, a pink-in-the-face Petunia, her incensed mother, and her weary-looking father.   
  
"Oh, Lily this, Lily that! It's _always_ about Lily--" she says, her voice reaching a melt-down pitch. Severus, for some reason, decides to open his mouth and intervene before things can get any worse, because Lily looks genuinely upset and her father groans at the cropping up of the familiar argument. Petunia, for her part, _erupts_ at her fathers' casual dismissal of her statement.  
  
"It's because I have night terrors," he says, trying to keep his voice smooth and quiet despite having to raise it in order to be heard at all. Everyone falls very suddenly silent, the boiling over argument evaporating in an instant. You could hear a pin drop. Everyone is looking at him in either bewilderment, shock, or disgust, so he clears his throat awkwardly and straightens up. "I scream in my sleep, sometimes. The walls in the attic are thicker than the ones down here. Less likely to wake everyone up."   
  
"A little _old_ for nightmares, aren't you, boy?"  
  
Severus sneers at Vernon, a nasty, caustic expression, before spitting out a bitter, "I'm a little _young_ for these, wouldn't you say?" He asks, gesturing at his face. Lily had written her parents about them a while back, so everyone except for Vernon knows where they came from. Petunia may even look a little guilty, now. He can't be sure, he's never seen an apologetic expression on her face before.   
  
"Alright..." Petunia whispers, softly, to everyone's surprise. Her voice is hesitant and a little wobbly, but she follows with a harsh, stubborn, "Fine! Severus can have the upstairs room. Whatever," before stomping into the kitchen, probably with the intent of cooling down by helping her mother prepare dinner.   
  
Vernon gives him an ugly, terse snarl on his way to the small guest room, while Lily sighs in relief, leaning against the banister. "Well, that could've gone worse!" 


	8. VIII: Legilimens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death sitting on a couch, peace talks between the daunting Rosamund Evans and one Severus Tobias Snape, and talk of garden weeds.

Ironically, when Severus is done with dinner--which was a tense, dismal affair for obvious reasons--and goes to lay his head down on his pillow in the upstairs room, he finds himself immediately dropping into a thick, suffocating darkness, rathee than having to toss and turn for ages before he finds sleep.  
  
But it's not sleep, or at least not _typical_ sleep, and he tenses so hard it hurts from head to toe, bracing for something, anything.  
  
What happens instead is he blinks and suddenly the world is awash with greys and blacks.   
  
He's standing in the middle of the guest room in the attic, but when he turns around he startles badly at the sight of himself, slumped into the double bed wearing the usual ratty, holey jumper and too-long flannel pajama pants, curled on his side. When he shakes the bewilderment of _that_ bizarre happenstance, he turns back around and inahles sharply as he finds Death reclined on the overstuffed cornercouch, wispy robes rustling and flapping in non-existent wind. Severus thinks for a brief, hysterical moment, that it's rather ridiculously funny. Death sitting on a couch. It looks like some bizarre pop culture oil painting--a skeleton in black robes in such a domestic setting. It sits with its knees fallen outwards and shoulders slumped, hands clasped idly together.   
  
"You need to tell her," says Death, in its resonating three toned rumble.   
  
"Do I?" He murmurs, "Well, that's a very efficient way to send her running for the hills, at the least."  
  
"She will understand. Besides, she will notice something is off eventually. You can't keep occluding your memories like this," Death says, "It will corrode your abilities, and put far too much strain on your mind in the long run."   
  
"And how, exactly, do you expect me to remember things that happened twenty years ago, if not for occlumency?"  
  
"You're at a point where that's less necessary than it was before. You can't keep occluding for the next sixteen years, Severus. It will blurr the lines between reality and memories." Death says this with an air of graveness that sets his teeth on edge. "Your health will wane."  
  
"And if I don't heed your warning?" He asks, warily. Death smiles a skulls smile and stands with the clinking and rattling of bones against one another, and holds out a hand.   
  
"It would be easier to show you," it rumbles. Severus glances back at himself fleetingly--with his mop of shiny, curly black hair and his ratty clothes, wound up nearly into a ball, before turning and taking Deaths hand. "Or at least press you to acknowledge the gravity of the situation more earnestly than if I just told you."  
  
 _The feeling is not unlike that of using a pensieve, and when he regains his senses he finds himself in a hallway with dark, handsome flooring and black and white victorian wall paper set above wainscotting. The more pressing fact, unfortunately, is a barefooted woman sat cross legged against the wall, weeping. Her clothes are stained with blood gone dry and rust colored, and her toes curl as she lets out a blood curdling, heart wrenching wail, curling further in on herself, hands tugging at her hair in frustration and grief._  
  
 _He'd recognize that shade of red anywhere, and watches with dismay as Albus Dumbledore slips out of one of the doorways in the hall, walking towards her with pity and grim acceptance on his face. He knows where this is going--it isn't difficult to piece together, and it makes him dizzy and nauseous to see Lily in such a state. It steals his breath and tightens his throat._  
  
" _Lily," says the Albus in the vision, laying an old, wrinkled hand on her shoulder, which heaves with a gasping breath that turns into a cry of anguish.  
  
"Don't you 'Lily' me! Don't you dare, Albus fucking Dumbledore! We did **everything** you asked, **everything!** We **TRUSTED** you!" She wails, green eyes wide and bloodshot, " **he** trusted you. And you let him die! You **knew**." That last word was loaded with accusation and anguish, coming out in a snarl, and Albus actually flinches back from her rage as she struggles to her feet, red hair mussed and flyaway, cheeks tear stained, face a blotchy red. "You knew exactly what was going on, and you let him run himself into the ground!" She pauses for a few wet, heaving gasps, and Albus stares at her, guilt in his expression. He doesn't deny it.   
  
"Lily, please. It was for the greater--"  
  
"GET THE FUCK OUT," she howls, shrill and hysterically angry. She grabs his robes and shoves him towards where Severus and Death stand, unseen. Her voice is raw and her Cokeworth accent has only gotten thicker, turning her u's into long o sounds. "GET OUT, YOU FUCKING COWARD! AND NEVER COME BACK! **NEVER!"**_  
  
As suddenly as he'd been plunged into the vision, he's pulled out, trembling and wide eyed, jerking upright with a heaving gasp for air. He's back in his body, fingers cramping from his white knuckled grip on the sheets. He swallows thickly, looking frantically around the room, half expecting Death to still be settled on the couch. The room is relievedly empty, and that knowledge allows him to slump back into the bed after a few tense moments of breathing through the panic rushing through his blood. He shudders hard at the thought that he could cause Lily such pain, screwing his eyes tightly shut with a stammering exhale.   
  
A hand lays on his shoulder, jolting him back into awareness, and he blinks his eyes open to see Lily hovering over him, her brows knit with worry. "I heard you yell," she explains, hushedly. "Alright?" She asks, searching his face for any signs of distress. She must find something, because she perches herself on the edge of the bed and takes his hand in hers.   
  
"It was nothing," he rasps. "Just da, you know..." he avoids her eyes, staring at the off-white popcorn ceiling instead.   
  
"You're lying," she says, lips twisting. "You _never_ lie to me."  
  
"Lily..." he says, waveringly.   
  
"Come on. Outside you get, the cold'll clear your head," she says, because this is what they _do_. He watches her slip off the bed and walk to the door, expectant. Its not like this is the first time he's been in this guest room. Just the first time for the _hols_. Its not uncommon for his father to kick him out of the house for a night.   
  
Before he met her, he'd curl up in the shed in the back yard and hope to high hel he didn't freeze to death. When Lily found out she made him promise to come to their house instead, bleeding heart as she is.   
  
He breathes in sharply and slides off the bed, flushing slightly and looking away as she takes in his holey jumper and the raggedy edges of his faded flannel pajama bottoms. Wrapping his arms around his too thin waist doesn't help him much, and his cheeks go from pink to a ruddy, blotchy crimson when she picks her way across the hall and comes back holding out a creme colored, cord knit jumper with a high collar. It looks blessedly warm but is faded with age, white in some places and beige in others.   
  
"It doesn't fit me anymore--might still be a bit big on you, but it's soft and warm and honestly it was my favorite thing to wear," she sounds slightly upset at growing out of it, but before he can say something like _I couldn't possibly_ she steps up until they share breathing space and presses it into his hands. Then, he loses all thought for a moment as her sunny, freckled hands cup either side of his porcelain pale face, her smile sad but so heart wrenchingly _kind,_ love and adoration and a bittersweet sort of compassion all ebbing and flowing under the surface of her lovely, starry green gaze. This is the side of Lily that the future remembers, that his _past_ remembered, the mantel deep, endless sea of compassion and unconditional love that welled within her heart.   
  
She tugs on his old, threadbare jumper pointedly before saying "meet you downstairs," and giving him a chaste peck to the corner of his mouth before heading down the old winding wooden stairs. They creak in certain places, and he watches, dumbstruck, as she skips the bad ones.   
  
He wars with himself for a moment while rubbing the thick wool of Lily's favorite sweater between his fingers before he gives in and changes. He tries not to give in when his eyes wander down his shirtless chest to his ribs, but he loses that battle too, his black gaze tracing over the words carved into his pale skin.   
  
_USELESS_  
  
 _RUNT_  
  
 _FAGGOT_  
  
 _FREAK_  
  
The letters are jagged and rough, carved whilst the canvas squirmed and sobbed on the floor--Severus will never forget how he got them, no matter that the reason is ridiculously mundane, and might've gotten any other child the back of a hand to the face or a belt to the bottom.   
  
His father had been rather fond of that vase, shaped and colored to resemble some sort of sports team logo, and when Severus' accidental magic had lashed out, his father had quite literally exploded. Now a days, Severus is clever enough to dispose of any Jack Daniels he finds lying around the house, because it was easy enough to tell his father he'd already drunk it, and the sort of violent his father gets when drunk on whiskey goes from his normal red-faced, spitting anger when drinking beer to something cruel and feral and utterly dangerous.   
  
He swallows thickly and forces himself to think of other things, tugging the sweater over his head and immediately basking in the soft, warm feeling it provides, washing away some of the anxious energy his recollection had caused.   
  
When he steps off the landing on the stairs and into the hall he finds Lily leaning on the faded wooden proch with two mugs in hand, her socked feet curling against the wood. She's let Grimm out to snuffle around in the snow and do his business.  
  
The cold night air does clear his head, and he spends a moment of what feels like timeless slow motion mulling over what he should say, how he should explain. Death was right. He can stop accluding his memories and the mental maturity level will stay the same--after all, the brain is physical, and his is just as developed as any other teenage boy, though his memories leave him wiser than most. Sure, he's some more mature, but at least half of maturity is hormones and brain development and a host of other things. If it wasn't, if he didn't feel so mentally young right now due to those changes (caught between the boyish and fumbly youthfulness of his body and mind and the severe fatalisticness of his memories) he would feel absolutely lecherous, courting a sixteen year old girl. But he is mentally 15--with the awkward bumbling and stammering and his still heavily ingrained muscle memory sat alongside his father given issues... not to bloody _mention_ that he is hermaphrodital due to that blasted prince gene, giving him what feels like twice the hormonal instability of your average teenager, oxytocin and testosterone still trying to assert themselves--which is the only reason he is not perturbed by the frankly ridiculous amount of crying he's done, he was a quite weepy youth for this very imbalance. It will even out soon enough, he knows.   
  
His feet eventually carry him to the railing on the porch, and Lily hands him a mug without even looking. Her eyes are fixated on the moon, high in the sky and accented by a few wispy clouds. "So...the truth?"   
  
"Mhm," he hums, staring into his mug. "I..." he shakes his head weakly, black hair bouncing around his ears. "I don't know where to start," he admits, expression perplexed.   
  
"You could show me," she offers, flippantly, as if discussing the weather and not very advanced mental magic.  
  
He could.   
  
"Lily..." he blows out a thin breath. "It's a lot. So much, in fact, that it hurts _my_ head sometimes--I'm not sure..." the eyes that lock on his knock his breath away without any warning, burning in their intensity, her eyes narrowed with determination. _This_ is the part of her personality that died with her, the one that no one ever bothered to remember. Everyone always said _kind_ Lily Evans or s _weet, motherly_ Lily Evans. She should have been remembered like this, as fierce, spitfire Lily Evans, with a storm raging in her eyes and a blazing inferno stoked in her chest. Suddenly, he wishes her son had been told about this part of her more than any of the others. He wishes the world had revered the blazing, star-bright, otherworldly creature before him rather than the doting motherly martyr. He wonders how much of this side of her was even left by the time she married James, if it had flickered out like so many things.   
  
"I can handle it, Sev. You know I can," her words are quiet but they're still so strong, steel in her spine and the set of her jaw, stone in the sweet notes of her voice. She could never have been anything other than Gryffindor, just as he could never be anything other than Slytherin. Her hand grips his, strong from being Gryffindor's best Chaser in an age, and her grip shows it, nearly pressing the delicate bones of his hand together until they grind.   
  
All of her is so much stronger than he'll ever be.   
  
"What you're going to see--" his voice breaks, "It's not pretty. I'm not--Just...Never doubt that I love you, no matter what I'm about to show you." He says, jaw rolling in a familiar, incessant little tick. Lily sees it, as always, and he watches her eyes treasure that imperfection like she does with all the other ones he has.   
  
"I love you too," she whispers, and it takes not a second for them to both set their mugs on the wooden rail. Severus hesitantly reaches up, gingerly pressing his fingers against the dip of her temple, eyes searching for any sort of uncertainty, even the tiniest mote.   
  
He finds none.   
  
"Do it," she reassures, soothes, voice gentle and lovely like the rest of her. He swallows thickly and, with a rattling little breath, nods.  
  
" _Legilimens."_ His voice is nearly a whisper, and he feels her stiffen in his arms, eyes scrunching tightly closed, hand gripping his forearm. He shows her _everything_.   
  
_The woman he could not save, a friend, a colleague.  
_  
 _I killed her. I may not have raised a wand to end her but nor did I try to protect her--how can this not put blame on my shoulders?_  
  
 _Throwing hexes for both sides of the war, and catching them in return.  
  
The burn of cruciatus curse eating through his nerves._  
  
 _Standing, silent and heartbroken, as he watched her walk down the aisle towards the man who had tormented him for years from behind a lovely arrangement of flowers set next to a familiar red oak tree._  
  
 _Severus... Please...  
_  
 _ **Avada Kadavra!  
**  
_ _I've given you a headstart for your pluck, Severus._ _  
  
Pain, and emerald eyes staring at him from her sons face. "T-Take them."  
  
Agony, Cruciatus was better, he'd take it any day.   
  
Blackness.  
  
Hide them, hide them **all**.   
  
YOU SAID YOU WOULD PROTECT HER!  
  
Lily and James put their faith in the wrong people, Severus.  
  
_ _Such a loyal servant, Severus. But I'm afraid...you've outpaced your usefullness._ _  
  
What would you give me in return?  
  
 **Anything.**  
  
Lily, after all this time?  
  
 **Always**.  
  
Burning, searing pain in his forearm, in his neck, a writhing snake beneath pale skin, staring at his face and loathing himself.  
  
Choked by soap bubbles, spluttering, hexing the daylight out of them in return with what little willpower he has left.  
  
His father screaming and throwing spittle in his face. In hospital, broken clavical, "He fell outta a tree, stupid boy." **Liar.**  
  
Rocking Lily's body in his arms and weeping, destroying Albus' office in a fit of blind, all encompassing fury.   
  
Such spirit, such _fire _in a man of ice and secrets._  
  
 _The power to protect the long dead._  
  
 _The vision, of children and happiness and Lily and he dancing in an empty town square. Of Lucius and he embracing over good news, dark marks dim but not gone and not forgotten and not_ **cared about** _on their arms.  
_  
 _His mother, severe but kind under the surface, too cowardly to leave and too weak to stay.  
_  
 _Green blood shimmering on his hands, soot and white ash fluttering down from the sky, a crowing, insistent voice urging him to keep moving no matter what._  
  
 _It's just so delightful that the one man in this petty war who wished to die is the one I must choose to live again._  
  
 _Lily's face drained of all light and color, laughing and swaying, speaking an ancient, forgotten language in three different voices._  
  
 _The sharp chill of the guns metal resting in his trembling hand as he wonders what the bloody hell he had left to live for, with Lily having left his side and his mother having left the world at large._  
  
 _Thinking, with a cold, silent tear streaking down his cheek, the word_ nothing _, with his minds voice tinted heavily with a snarl._  
  
 _His pants come off next, after his trousers, and everyone bellows and laughs, angry tears sliding down his upside down face, his inner thighs littered with perfectly horizontal scars that give some of the laughers pause, but he'd seen Lily, seen her stifle a giggle before she noticed them, the old silvery lines and the new pink ones. Then they notice the ugly words on his ribs, the cigarette burns, the surgical scar on his collar bone. He can't cover them or they'll see how much of a freak he really is, he can't move his hands from shielding himself. She **laughed.** He doesn't need rescuing from someone who **laughed**.   
_  
_He can help you, show him, tell him, he can help you--_  
  
 **Mudblood!**  
  
 **Snivellous!**  
  
 _A portrait in the headmasters office, sneering derisively, spitting that awful word, "Mudblood--" and it's been years, decades, but it burns his blood and steeps his vision in red,  
_ _  
I just want to apologize, I'll sleep out here on the floor if I have to. Just_ please _tell her I'm here._  
  
 **DO NOT SAY THAT WORD!**  
  
 _Horcruxes?_  
  
 _Keep the timeline similar._  
  
 _Yes, Horcruxes._  
  
 _Muttering beneath his breath at sixty words per minute as Harry struggled to keep on his broom.  
_  
 _Her son, green eyed and so, so kind--his own cruelty, his mind weathered and eroded by time and trauma, lashing out blindly at the boy who looks like the man who beat him into a hollow shadow of his former self._  
  
 _Drinking himself into a stupor, hating himself all the more, with every sip a vision--his mum, beer bottle in her face, her lips blue and the tile red,_ **cold, lifeless** _\--and a man with short cropped black hair and an ugly, angry face, nothing like Severus but_ everything _like him.  
_  
 _Remembering Lily's death, the prophecy, his begging, his sick, dizzy realization.  
  
Watching a poor muggleborn woman, his **friend** , not Lily, but something more than an acqaintence killed in cold blood, unable to reassure her or apologize or object._ **  
**

 _Lately? Only those I could not save._  
  
 _The price? Your peace of mind._  
  
 _Wind, billowing in his ears, horror as he watches the headmaster fall, occluded away like everything else.  
_  
 _Draco's face, a mixture of horror--the first time he'd witnessed death?--and triumph, sickening._  
  
 _Losing himself to a suffocating sea of grief and loss and terror on the grounds, eyes gold and color bled from the world.  
_  
 _Hagrids fretting, deaths bemusement, his own scuffed palms oozing green blood onto his scarred face._  
  
 _How dare you stand where he stood?!  
_  
 _A bizarre scene from a pop culture painting, death relaxed on the overstuffed couch in the guest room, Lily's anguished wails, the bloodstain on her clothes, Albus' weary face._  
  
He yanks back on the connection, untethering it, and finds Lily's face stained with tears. Her lower lip trembles, and Severus panics, unsure of how to fix this, what to do, because he would never be able to bear obliviating her, and yet she seems so very distressed. Death was _wrong_ and now he has ruined everything. He always ruins everything. She stifles a sob, but then she lets in a sharp breath. He watches her shoulders straighten and her watering eyes harden until they're a steelly eu de nil, her hands coming up, one cupping the back of his neck, squeezing firmly, a reassurance, coupled with a hand cupping his cheek. "I'm _already_ your anchor, Severus Tobias Snape," she says, with such fervor in her voice that his eyes blow a little wide. "I'm _never_ going to leave you. Not ever. Not unless you want me gone."  
  
"The things I've done," he says, voice wavering. "How could you ever say that, having seen them with your own eyes?"  
  
"You want _so badly_ to fix them, all of them. You gave your life for the cause, Severus! Not just by dying, even, you spent sixteen _years_ protecting that boy, protecting the world. How could I ever condemn you for that? How can that ever be outweighed by a few foolish years doing something you hated to do in the first place?"  
  
"I..." he sucks in a shallow breath, overwhelmed by this unconditional acceptance, the repentance he's always fought to deserve singing in his veins. "I love you," he admits, again, eyes dropping away coyly from her blazing stare.  
  
"I know," she whispers, eyes softening and hand guiding him to look at her. "I love you too, Sev. So, _so_ much." And then she collides with him in the fiercest, most emotionally charged embrace he has ever recieved, burying her freckled face in his pitch black hair, hands strong and unyeilding against his back, though her fingers tremble and he feels tears wet his ebony locks. He melts into her arms, feeling cut loose, free and weightless and as if he would drift away without her steady grip, burying his bespeckled face into her shoulder, breathing in her scent--wildflowers and the sweet, fabric-rich scent of the Evans' detergent, mixed with something honeyed and undescribable.  
  
###  
  
Severus wakes up the next morning curled up against Lily's side, head on her shoulder and her snoring against the side of his head. Someone threw a thick, black wool blanket over them both, and their mugs are where they left them on the coasters on the coffee table. Lily's _A Compendium of Healing Spells, v. IV_ is rested face down in her lap. Grimm is laying at the base of the couch, asleep.   
  
He breathes in deeply, stretching his legs out on the couch with a yawn he hides behind a hand. And then he startles badly when his brain catches up to him and he sees Mrs. Evans standing in the door way, studying him.   
  
"M-Mrs. Evans--" he stammers, voice groggy from sleep, sitting up fully, long legs still wound up under the blanket.   
  
"It's alright," she soothes, raising her hands in a truce. "Relax," she tells him, waiting until he does so in order to speak, voice still soft as to avoiding waking Lily. "Everet...gave me a talking to, last night... Help me make coffee? We can talk easier in the kitchen." Severus doesn't miss the curious way she watches him as he gently guides Lily to lay down rather than slumping over as she otherwise would of, the way he snatches a soft throw pillow for her to rest her head on and adjusts the wool blanket to cover her more fully. The book comes to rest on the coffee table.   
  
He hadn't had a single bad dream sleeping on the couch. Sleeping on her shoulder.   
  
He pads after her, grabbing the mugs, suddenly very self conscious about the sweater Lily had given him and his old, raggedy pajama bottoms. He worries at the edge of the sweater, head ducked slightly as if ready for a scolding.   
  
In reality, "helping" her make coffee is just leaning against the counter and, at one point, handing her a coffee filter. He sets the mugs in the sink and wraps his arms around himself unconsciously, jaw ticking to the side once and then twice more.   
  
"Have you always done that?" Asks Mrs. Evans, brows knit. He blinks at her, and she mimicks the rolling of his jaw to one side.   
  
"Oh," he makes, quietly. "It's just a tick," he explains, and now the self consciousness is threatening to swallow him whole. His hand comes up to rub at the offending part of his body, eyes focusing on his socked feet. Her expression wavers, guilt washing over her fair face. "I've had it for as long as I can remember."  
  
"Sorry," she says, "I wouldn't have pointed it out if I'd known." He nods curtly, accepting but not replying to the oddly heartfelt apology. She rounds the small table in the kitchen, miniscule compared to the one in the dining room, and sits down with her mug of coffee. He busies himself with washing the mugs by hand, mechanically, taken over by old habits. He can feel her gaze burning into his back. "We do have a dish washer, you know," she remarks, dryly.  
  
"I--Sorry, I just...we don't, at home, I mean, and I--" he says, fingers fumbling over one of the black mugs. He would've dropped it had his reflexes not saved him, fingers curling around the handle just in time. He's not used to so much human interaction, with so many people--He's used to being an ornament, an after thought. There but not useful and therefore not dwelled upon. Really, he's a mess. He rather likes being an afterthought, honestly. It's far less stressful. The years of spying made it one of the very few unfiltered mechanisms left of his psychy--falling into the background is what he's _good_ at.   
  
"It's fine. I just...didn't really think you were the type."   
  
"The--The _type_? What do you mean by that?" Severus blurts out incredulously, before he can even think of stopping himself. Really, the Evans in general do get their kicks from knocking down all the carefully built walls and mannerisms he prides himself on maintaining, don't they? He turns, setting the mug in the sink and drying his hands off on a nearby towel.   
  
"It's not a bad thing," she backpedals, raising her hands in mock surrender, again. "I just, well," she sighs defeatedly. "I went to school with your father, you know. And _he_ was, well, lets just say _traditional_ in his viewpoints." He knows what she means, of course. His father is under the assumption that women are just glorified kitchen appliances, which means that he is rather unlikely to wash dishes, pick up after himself, or handle laundry. Despite his need for everything to be spick and span, he's also under the assumption that he holds no responsibility to _make_ things that way. Therefore Severus, whom his father has said doesn't count given that he's such a "skinny little runt," does much of the housework alongside his mother. He raises his brows disbelievingly--Mrs. Evans is a very traditional woman. Not that Severus cares a whit about her judgemental stance with his father, but how could she hope to speak about "traditionalism" when she herself encourages those very sentiments?  
  
Of course, he understands her meaning. In fact, he knows quite personally what it's like to be blinded by old hurts to the point of lashing out towards the nearest scapegoat. For Severus, it had been Harry. He isn't exactly _proud_ of his temperament or conduct, but he had never laid a handon any of his students. It's more than some could say, especially for someone forced into their position. Not that it is excusable, only that he did have reasons, however misguided. To think that Lily's Mum has a similar sentiment towards him is startling at the least. But Mrs. Evans is looking him over with a furrowed brow, examining him in the tenuous silence as if trying to gauge his worth.   
  
"That's my daughters jumper," she tells him, as if he did not already know. "Her favorite," she takes a sip of her coffee, mug cradled in sunnily tanned hands, "Sit down, Severus." She gestures to the chair across from her and he nods curtly, sliding down into the confortably made wooden chair. "As I said, Everet's given me quite a tongue lashing...I have to admit, I don't really see what's so terrible about Vernon." She shakes her head, brows knit. "But maybe I've just been blind? You, Lily, Everet, you're seeing something I don't. Same thing when it comes to you, Severus. Lily and Everet both think the world of you--"  
  
"I know you don't care for me, Mrs. Evans," he tells her, somehow managing to be calm and at ease, leaning back in his chair slightly. "But that's not something I can hold against you. It isn't like you don't have _reason_ for it, after all."   
  
"Oh? And what reasons are those? That you were born to a bad man? Your financial standing?" She sighs heavily. "Severus, I've been unfair to you. You've gone through hell, clear as day," Rosamund gestures to his scars, and then to the general direction of his house. "You're going to be staying here for the holidays, and it's as good a time as any to show me why my daughter and husband like you so much. I may be more than a tad skeptical, but...well...I promised I'd try."  
  
He understands her offer; she doesn't trust him, but she's willing to give him an opening, to prove that he _can_ be trusted. That's enough for now. "Thank you, Mrs. Evans. I won't disappoint."   
  
"Sev?" Calls a voice from the living room. Lily bounds into the kitchen with Grim hot on her heels, panting happily, and he tries not to feel too embarrassed when his face lights up. She's a mess, bed head and rumpled pajamas, but Severus has never seen anyone more gorgeous. Last night had been...intense was perhaps an underwhelming descriptor.   
  
"Hey, Lils."  
  
"Morning, Mum!" Lily says, swooping around the table to peck her severe but kindly mother on the cheek, snagging a sip of the womans coffee when she isn't looking.   
  
"Oi! Get your own, ornery little weed!" she grouses, clutching her mug close to her chest. There's an amused glint to her brown eyes, though.   
  
"I am _not_ a weed, I am the _prettiest_ of wildflowers, I'll have you know!" Lily denies, sticking her pixie-ish nose in the air with an impressive expression of mock-affront, hands on her hips. Severus can't help the grin that steals onto his face, or the laugh that bubbles out of him at the display.   
  
"You've certainly _grown_ like a weed! Taller than your lanky little friend, at least," goads Mrs. Evans with an amused little grin at the banter. Lily laughs in delight and goes about making her coffee. Severus blinks in surprise. With both their feet bare Lily _is_ taller than him, but perhaps by only a centimeter. He hadn't noticed that.   
  
He's never been a particular large or tall person; he averaged out at five foot nine, and never weighed more than a hundred and forty pounds in his life. He assumes its a mix of stunted growth and his equally stunted eating habits. Grim snuffles at his hand, lapping at spindly fingers until he gives in and starts running them through the dogs thick double coat.   
  
Petunia, he assesses as she pads through the doorway into the kitchen, is still shorter than him by maybe a handswidth. The air grows tense and uncomfortable for a moment before everyone realizes Petunia has switched to the _pretend my wizard relative and houseguest do not exist_ mode of behavior. For some reason, that melts any possible hostility, at least for the moment, though Lily and she have been butting heads since first year and its bound to get hectic again at some point. He knows that Lily loves her sister, and that somewhere deep down, beneath the denial and jelously and spite, that Petunia probably feels the same. Not that the woman will ever _admit_ that!  
  
"Wanna go visit your Mum after breakfast?" Lily says under her breath. Severus blinks and looks up at her, a jolt of anxiety lancing through him at the thought of possibly running into his father. Still, he nods with a smile, and she smiles back. It's set, then. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A drawing of MBT Sev by moi, on my tumblr:
> 
> https://severusevans-snape.tumblr.com/post/190917820222/severus-snape-in-million-billion-trillion-my-time


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